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AN ESSAY
IN AID OF
A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT.
lONDON :
GILBERT AND lUVINOKtN, PRINl'UKS,
ST. JOiiN'S SQIJAKK.
AN ESSAY
IN AID OF
A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT
BY
JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN.
Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populuin suum.
St. Ambrose.
FIFTH EDITION.
Houtjon :
BURNS & GATES,
1881.
\^All rights reserved. \
TO
EDWARD BELLASIS,
SERJEANT AT LAW,
IN REMEMBRANCE
OF A LONG, EQUABLE, SUNNY FRIENDSHIP;
IN GRATITUDE
FOR CONTINUAL KINDNESSES SHOWN TO ME,
FOR AN UNWEARIED ZEAL IN MY BEHALF,
FOR A TRUST IN ME WHICH HAS NEVER WAVERED,
AND A PROMPT, EFFECTUAL SUCCOUR AND SUPPORT
IN TIMES OF SPECIAL TRIAL,
FROM HIS AFFECTIONATE
J. H. N.
February 21, 1870.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
ASSENT AKD APPEEHENSION.
CHAPTER I.
Modes of holding and apprehending Propositions .... 3
§ 1. Modes of holding Propositions ..... 3
§ 2. Modes of apprehending Propositions .... 9
CHAPTER II.
Assent considered as Apprehensive 13
CHAPTER III.
The Apprehension of Propositions 19
CHAPTER IV,
Notional and Real Assent 36
§ 1. Notional Assents . 42
§ 2. Real Assents 75
§ 3. Notional and Real Assents contrasted .... 89
CHAPTER V.
Apprehension and Assent in the matter of Religion ... 98
§ 1. Belief in one God 101
§ 2. Belief in the Holy Trinity 122
§ 3. Belief in Dogmatic Theology 142
viii Contents.
PART II.
ASaBNT AND INFKnENCB.
CHAPTER VI.
Assent considered as Unconditional 157
§ 1. Simple Assent . 159
§ 2. Complex Assent 188
CHAPTER VII.
Certitude 210
§ 1. Assent and Certitude contrasted 210
§ 2. Indefectibility of Certitude 221
CHAPTER VIII.
Inference 259
§ 1. Formal Inference 259
§ 2. Informal Inference 288
§ 3. Natural Inference 330
CHAPTER IX.
The Illative Sense 343
§ 1. The Sanction of the Illative Sense 346
§ 2. The Nature of the Illative Sense 353
§ 3. The Rjinge of the Illative Sense 360
CHAPTER X.
Inference and Assent in the matter of Religion .... 384
§ 1. Natural Religion 389
§ 2. Revealed Religion . . . . . . . . 409
PART I.
ASSENT AND APPREHENSION.
CHAPTER I.
SrODES OF HOLDING AND APPREHENDING PROPOSITIONS.
§ 1. Modes op holding Propositions.
1. Propositions (consisting of a subject and predicate
united by the copula) may take a categorical^ conditional,
or interrogative form.
(1) An interrogative, when they ask a Question,
(e.g. Does Free-trade benefit the poorer classes ?) and
imply the possibility of an affirmative or negative
resolution of it.
(2) A conditional, when they express a Conclusion
(e. g. Free-trade therefore benefits the poorer classes),
and at once imply, and imply their dependence on,
other propositions.
(3) A categorical, when they simply make an Asser-
tion (e. g. Free-trade does benefit), and imply the
absence of any condition or reservation of any kind,
looking neither before nor behind, as resting in them-
selves and being intrinsically complete.
These three modes of shaping a proposition, distinct
as they are from each other, follow each other in natural
sequence. A proposition, which starts with beiug a
4 Modes of holding Propositions.
Question, may become a Conclusion, and then be changed
into an Assertion ; but it has of course ceased to be a
question, so far forth as it has become a conclusion, and
has rid itself of its argumentative form — that is, has
ceased to be a conclusion, — so far forth as it has become
an assertion. A question has not yet got so far as to
be a conclusion, though it is the necessary preliminary
of a conclusion ; and an assertion has got beyond being
a mere conclusion, though it is the natural issue of a
conclusion. Their correlation is the measure of their
distinction one from another.
No one is likely to deny that a question is distinct
both from a conclusion and from an assertion ; and an
assertion will be found to be equally distinct from a
conclusion. For, if we rest our affirmation on argu-
ments, this shows that we are not asserting; and, when
we assert, we do not argue. An assertion is as distinct
from a conclusion, as a word of command is from a per-
suasion or recommendation. Command and assertion,
as such, both of them, in their different ways, dispense
with, discard, ignore, antecedents of any kind, though
antecedents may have been a sine qua non condition of
their being elicited. They both carry with them the
pretension of being personal acts.
In insisting on the intrinsic distinctness of these
three modes of putting a proposition, I am not main-
taining that they may not co-exist as regards one and
the same subject. For what we have already concluded,
we may, if we will, make a question of; and what we
are asserting, we may of course conclude over again.
We may assert^ to one man, and conclude to another.
Modes of holding Propositions. 5
and ask of a third ; still when we assert, we do not
conclude, and, when we assert or conclude, we do not
question.
2. The internal act of holding propositions is for the
most part analogous to the external act of enunciating
them ; as there are three ways of enunciating, so are
there three ways of holding them, each corresponding
to each. These three mental acts are Doubt, Inference,
and Assent. A question is the expression of a doubt ;
a conclusion is the expression of an act of inference ;
and an assertion is the expression of an act of assent.
To doubt, for instance, is not to see one's way to hold,
that Free-trade is or that it is not a benefit ; to infer,
is to hold on sufficient grounds that Free-trade may,
must, or should be a benefit; to assent to the proposition,
is to hold that Free-trade is a benefit.
Moreover, propositions, while they are the material of
these three enunciations, are also the objects of the three
corresponding mental acts ; and as without a proposition,
there cannot be a question, conclusion, or assertion, so
without a proposition there is nothing to doubt about,
nothing to infer, nothing to assent to. Mental acts of
whatever kind presuppose their objects.
And, since the three enunciations are distinct from
each other, therefore the three mental acts also, Doubt,
Inference, and Assent, are, with reference to one and
the same proposition, distinct from each other ; else,
why should their several enunciations be distinct ?
And indeed it is very evident, that, so far forth as
we infer, we do not doubt, and that, when we assent,
6 Modes of Jiolding Propositions.
we are not inferring, and, when we doubt, we cannot
assent.
And in fact, these three modes of entertaining propo-
sitions, — doubting them, inferring them, assenting to
them, are so distinct in their action, that, when they
are severally carried out into the intellectual habits of
an individual, they become the principles and notes of
three distinct states or characters of mind. For instance,
in the case of Revealed Religion, according as one or
other of these is paramount within him, a man is a
sceptic as regards it; or a philosopher, thinking it more
or less probable considered as a conclusion of reason; or
he has an unhesitating faith in it, and is recognized as
a believer. If he simply disbelieves, or dissents, then
he is assenting to the contradictory of the thesis, viz.
to the proposition that there is no Revelation.
Many minds of course there are, which are not under
the predominant influence of any one of the three. Thus
men are to be found of irreflective, impulsive, unsettled,
or again of acute minds, who do not know what they
believe and what they do not, and who may be by turns
sceptics, inquirers, or believers; who doubt, assent, infer,
and doubt again, according to the circumstances of the
season. Nay further, in all minds there is a certain co-
existence of these distinct acts ; that is, of two of them,
for we can at once infer and assent, though we cannot at
once either assent or infer and also doubt. Indeed, in
a multitude of cases we infer truths, or apparent truths,
before, and while, and after we assent to them.
Lastly, it cannot be denied that these three acts are
all natural to the mind; 1 mean, that, in exercising
Modes of fiolding Propositions. 7
them, we are not violating the laws of our nature, as
if they were in themselves an extravagance or weakness,
but are acting according to it, according to its legiti-
mate constitution. Undoubtedly, it is possible, it is
common, in the particular case, to err in the exercise of
Doubt, of Inference, and of Assent ; that is, we may be
withholding a judgment about propositions on which
we have the means of coming to some definite conclu-
sion ; or we may be assenting to propositions which we
ought to receive only on the credit of their premisses,
or again to keep ourselves in suspense about; but such
errors of the individual belong to the individual, not to
his nature, and cannot avail to forfeit for him his natural
right, under proper circumstances, to doubt, or to infer,
or to assent. We do but fulfil our nature in doubting,
inferring, and assenting ; and our duty is, not to abstain
from the exercise of any function of our nature, but to
do what is in itself right rightly.
3. So far in general : — in this Essay I treat of pro-
positions only in their bearing upon concrete matter,
and I am mainly concerned with Assent; with In-
ference, in its relation to Assent, and only such inference
as is not demonstration ; with Doubt hardly at all. I
dismiss Doubt with one observation, I have here spoken
of it simply as a suspense of mind, in which sense of the
word, to have " no doubt '^ about a thesis is equivalent
to one or other of the two remaining acts, either to
inferring it or else assenting to it. However, the word
is often taken to mean the deliberate recognition of a
thesis as being uncertain; in this sense Doubt is nothing
8 Modes of holding Propositions.
else than an assent, viz. an assent to a proposition
at variance with the thesis, as I have already noticed
in the case of Disbelief.
Confining myself to the subject of Assent and In-
ference, I observe two points of contrast between
them.
The first I have already noted. Assent is uncon-
ditional ; else, it is not really represented by assertion.
Inference is conditional, because a conclusion at least
implies the assumption of premisses, and still more,
because in concrete matter, on which I am engaged,
demonstration is impossible.
The second has regard to the apprehension necessary
for holding a proposition. We cannot assent to a pro-
position, without some intelligent apprehension of it ;
whereas we need not understand it at all in order to
infer it. We cannot give our assent to the proposition
that " X is z," till we are told something about one or
other of the terms ; but we can infer, if " x is y, and
y is z, that x is z," whether we know the meaning of
X and z or no.
These points of contrast and their results will come
before us in due course : here, for a time leaving the
consideration of the modes of holding propositions, I
proceed to inquire into what is to be understood by
apprehending them.
Modes of apprehe7iding Propositio7is.
§ 2. Modes op apprehending Propositions.
By our apprehension of propositions I mean our imposi-
tion of a sense on the terms of which they are composed.
Now what do the terms of a proposition, the subject and
predicate, stand for? Sometimes they stand for certain
ideas existing in our own minds, and for nothing
outside of them ; sometimes for things simply external
to us, brought home to us through the experiences and
informations we have of them. All things in the exterior
world are unit and individual, and are nothing else; but
the mind not only contemplates those unit realities, as
they exist, but has the gift, by an act of creation, of
bringing before it abstractions and generalizations,
which have no existence, no counterpart, out of it.
Now there are propositions, in which one or both of
the terms are common nouns, as standing for what is
abstract, general, and non-existing, such as "Man is an
animal, some men are learned, an Apostle is a creation
of Christianity, a line is length without breadth, to
err is human, to forgive divine," These I shall call
notional propositions, and the apprehension with which
we infer or assent to them, notional.
And there are other propositions, which are composed
of singular nouns, and of which the terms stand for
lo Modes of apprehending Propositions.
things external to us, unit and individual, as " Philip
was the father of Alexander," " the earth goes round
the sun," " the Apostles first preached to the Jews ;"
and these I shall call real propositions, and their
apprehension real.
There are then two kinds of apprehension or inter-
pretation to which propositions may be subjected,
notional and real.
Next I observe, that the same proposition may admit
of both of these interpretations at once,having a notional
sense as used by one man, and a real as used by another.
Thus a schoolboy may perfectly apprehend, and construe
with spirit, the poet^s words, "Dum Capitolium scandet
cum tacita Virgine Pontifex;" ho has seen steep hills,
flights of steps, and processions; he knows what enforced
silence is ; also he knows all about the Pontifex Maxi-
mus, and the Vestal Virgins; he has an abstract hold
upon every word of the description, yet without the
words therefore bringing before him at all the living
image which they would light up in the mind of a con-
temporary of the poet, who had seen the fact described,
or of a modern historian who had duly informed himself
in the religious phenomena, and by meditation had
realized the Roman ceremonial, of the age of Augustus.
Again, " Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," is a
mere common-place, a terse expression of abstractions
in the mind of the poet himself, if Philippi is to be the
index of his patriotism, whereas it would be the record
of experiences, a sovereign dogma, a grand aspiration,
inflaming the imagination, piercing the heart, of a
Wallace or a Tell.
Modes of apprehending Propositions. 1 1
As the multitude of common nouns have originally
been singular, it is not surprising that many of them
should so remain still in the apprehension of particular
individuals. In the proposition " Sugar is sweet/' the
predicate is a common noun as used by those who have
compared sugar in their thoughts with honey or glyce-
rine; but it may be the only distinctively sweet thing
in the experience of a child, and may be used by him as
a noun singular. The first time that he tastes sugar,
if his nurse says, " Sugar is sweet ^' in a notional setise,
meaning by sugar, lump-sugar, powdered, brown, and
candied, and by sweet, a specific flavour or scent which
is found in many articles of food and many flowers, he
may answer in a real sense, and in an individual pro-
position " Sugar is sweet, ^^ meaning " this sugar is this
sweet thing."
Thirdly, in the same mind and at the same time, the
same proposition may express both what is notional and
what is real. When a lecturer in mechanics or chemistry
shows to his class by experiment some physical fact, he
and his hearers at once enunciate it as an individual
thing before their eyes, and also as generalized by their
minds into a law of nature. When Virgil says, "' Varium
et mutabile semper fcemina," he both sets before his
readers what he means, to be a general truth, and at the
same time applies it individually to the instance of Dido.
He expresses at once a notion and a fact.
Of these two modes of apprehending propositions,
notional and real, real is the stronger ; I mean by
stronger the more vivid and forcible. It is so to be
accounted for the very reason that it is concerned with
1 2 Modes of app7'ehending Propositions.
what is either real or is taken for real ; for intellectual
ideas cannot compete in eflfectiveness with the expe-
rience of concrete facts. Various proverbs and maxims
sanction me in so speaking, such as, " Facts are
stubborn things/' *' Experientia docet/* " Seeing is
believing /' and the popular contrast between theory
and practice, reason and sight, philosophy and faith.
Not that real apprehension, as such, impels to action,
any more than notional ; but it excites and stimulates
the aflfections and passions, by bringing facts home
to them as motive causes. Thus it indirectly brings
about what the apprehension of large principles, of
general laws, or of moral obligations, never could
effect.
Eeverting to the two modes of holding propositions,
conditional and unconditional, which was the subject of
the former Section, that is, inferences and assents, I
observe that inferences, which are conditional acts, are
especially cognate to notional apprehension, and assents,
which are unconditional, to real. This distinction, too,
will come before us in the course of the following
chapters.
And now I have stated the main subjects of which I
propose to treat; viz. the distinctions in the use of
propositions, which I have been drawing outj and the
questions which those distinctions involve.
CHAPTER II.
ASSENT CONSIDERED AS APPREHENSIVE.
I HAVE already said of an act of Assent, first, that it is
in itself the absolute acceptance of a proposition without
any condition ; and next that, in order to its being made,
it presupposes the condition, not only of some previous
inference in favour of the proposition, but especially of
some concomitant apprehension of its terms. I proceed
to the latter of these two subjects ; that is, of Assent
considered as apprehensive, leaving the discussion of
Assent as unconditional for a later place in this Essay.
By apprehension of a proposition, I mean, as I have
already said, the interpretation given to the terms of
which it is composed. When we infer, we consider a
proposition in relation to other propositions; when we
assent to it, we consider it for its own sake and in its
intrinsic sense. That sense must be in some degree
known to us; else, we do but assert the proposition,
we in no wise assent to it. Assent I have described
to be a mental assertion ; in its very nature then it is
of the mind, and not of the lips. We can assert with-
out assenting ; assent is more than assertion just by
this much, that it is accompanied by some apprehen-
14 Assent considered as apprehensive.
sion of the matter asserted. This is plain ; and the only
question is, what measure of apprehension is sufficient.
And the answer to this question is equally plain : — it
is the predicate of the proposition which must be appre-
hended. In a proposition one term is predicated of
another ; the subject is referred to the predicate, and the
predicate gives us information about the subject; — there-
fore to apprehend the proposition is to have that infor-
mation, and to assent to it is to acquiesce in it as true.
Therefore I apprehend a proposition, when I apprehend
its predicate. The subject itself need not be apprehended
per se in order to a genuine assent : for it is the very
thing which the predicate has to elucidate, and therefore
by its formal place in the proposition, so far as it is the
subject, it is something unknown, something which the
predicate makes known ; but the predicate cannot make
it known, unless it is known itself. Let the question
be, " What is Trade ? " here is a distinct profession of
ignorance about " Trade /' and let the answer be,
" Trade is the interchange of goods ;" — trade then need
not be known, as a condition of assent to the proposi-
tion, except so far as the account of it which is given in
answer, " the interchange of goods,'' makes it known ;
and that must be apprehended in order to make it
known. The very drift of the proposition is to tell us
somethiug about the subject ; but there is no reason
why our knowledge of the subject, whatever it is, should
go beyond what the predicate tells us about it. Further
than this the subject need not be apprehended : as far
as this it must j it will not be apprehended thus far,
unless we apprehend the predicate.
Assent considered as apprehe7isive. 1 5
If a child asksj "What is Lucern?" and is answered,
"Lucern is niedicago sativa, of the class Diadelphia
and order Decandria ;" and henceforth says obediently,
" Lucern is medicago sativa, he" he makes no act of
assent to the proposition which he enunciates, but
speaks like a parrot. But, if he is told, "Lucern is food
for cattle,^' and is shown cows grazing in a meadow,
then though he never saw lucern, and knows nothing
at all about it, besides what he has learned from the
predicate, he is in a position to make as genuine an
assent to the proposition ** Lucern is food for cattle,^'
on the word of his informant, as if he knew ever so
much more about lucern. And as soon as he has got
as far as this, he may go further. He now knows
enough about lucern, to enable him to apprehend pro-
positions which have lucern for their predicate, should
they come before him for assent, as, " That field is sown
with lucern,^' or '' Clover is not lucern.'^
Yet there is a way, in which the child can give an in-
direct assent even to a proposition, in which he under-
stood neither subject nor predicate. He cannot indeed
in that case assent to the proposition itself, but he can
assent to its truth. He cannot do more than assert that
" Lucern is medicago sativa," but he can assent to the
proposition, " That lucern is medicago sativa is true.''
For here is a predicate which he sufficiently apprehends,
what is inapprehensible in the proposition being confined
to the subject. Thus the child's mother might teach
him to repeat a passage of Shakespeare, and when he
asked the meaning of a particular line, such as " The
quality of mercy is not strained," or "Virtue itself
1 6 Assent considered as apprehensive.
turns vice, being misapplied/' she might answer him,
that he was too young to understand it yet, but that
it had a beautiful meaning, as he would one day know :
and he, in faith on her word, might give his assent to
such a proposition, — not, that is, to the line itself which
he had got by heart, and which would be beyond him,
but to its being true, beautiful, and good.
Of course I am speaking of assent itself, and its in-
trinsic conditions, not of the ground or motive of it.
Whether there is an obligation upon the child to trust
his mother, or whether there are cases where such trust
is impossible, are irrelevant questions, and I notice
them in order to put them aside. I am examining the
act of assent itself, not its preliminaries, and I have
specified three directions, which among others the
assent may take, viz. assent immediately to a proposi-
tion itself, assent to its truth, and assent both to its
truth and to the ground of its being true, — "Lucern
is food for cattle,'' — " That lucern is medicago sativa
is true,'' — and "My mother's word, that lucern is medi-
cago sativa, and is food for cattle, is the truth." Now
in each of these there is one and the same absolute ad-
hesion of the mind to the proposition, on the part of the
child; he assents to the apprehensible proposition, and
to the truth of the inapprehensible, and to the veracity
of his mother in her assertion of the inapprehensible.
I say the same absolute adhesion, because unless he did
assent without any reserve to the proposition that lucern
was food for cattle, or to the accuracy of the botanical
name and description of it, he would not be giving an
unreserved assent to his mother's word : yet, though
Assent considered as apprehensive. 1 7
these assents are all unreserved, still they certainly differ
in strength, and this is the next point to which I wish
to draw attention. It is indeed plain, that, though the
child assents to his mother's veracity, without perhaps
being conscious of his own act, nevertheless that par-
ticular assent of his has a force and life in it which the
other assents have not, insomuch as he apprehends the
proposition, which is the subject of it, with greater
keenness and energy than belongs to his apprehension
of the others. Her veracity and authority is to him no
absti-act truth or item of general knowledge, but is
bound up with that image and love of her person which
is part of himself, and makes a direct claim on him for
his summary assent to her general teachings.
Accordingly, by reason of this circumstance of his
apprehension he would not hesitate to say, did his years
admit of it, that he would lay down his life in defence
of his mother's veracity. On the other hand, he would
not make such a profession in the case of the proposi-
tions, " Lucern is food for cattle," or " That lucern is
medicago sativa is true ;" and yet it is clear too, that,
if he did in truth assent to these propositions, he would
have to die for them also, rather than deny them, when
it came to the point, unless he made up his mind to
tell a falsehood. That he would have to die for all
three propositions severally rather than deny them,
shows the completeness and absoluteness of assent in its
very nature; that he would not spontaneously challenge
so severe a trial in the case of two out of the three
particular acts of assent, illustrates in what sense one
assent may be stronger than another.
c
1 8 Assent considered as apprehensive.
It appears then, that, in assenting to propositions,
an apprehension in some sense of their terms is not
only necessary to assent, as such, but also gives a dis-
tinct character to its acts. If therefore we would
know more about Assent, we must know more about
the apprehension which accompanies it. Accordingly
to the subject of Apprehension I proceed.
CHAPTER III.
THE APPREHENSION OF PEOPOSITIOXS.
I HAVE said in these Introductory Chapters that there can
be no assent to a proposition, without some sort of ap-
prehension of its terms ; next that there are two modes
of apprehension, notional and real ; thirdly, that, while
assent may be given to a proposition on either appre-
hension of it, still its acts are elicited more heartily and
forcibly, when they are made upon real apprehension
which has things for its objects, than when they are
made in favour of notions and with a notional apprehen-
sion. The first of these three points I have just been
discussing; now I will proceed to the second, viz. the
two modes of apprehending propositions, leaving the
third for the Chapters which follow.
I have used the word apprehension, and not under-
standing, because the latter word is of uncertain mean-
ing, standing sometimes for the faculty or act of
conceiving a proposition, sometimes for that of com-
prehending it, neither of which come into the sense of
apprehension. It is possible to apprehend without un-
derstanding. I apprehend what is meant by saying
that John is Eichard^s wife's father's aunt's husband,
c 2
20 The apprehension of Propositions.
but, if I am unable so to take in these successive rela-
tionships as to understand the upshot of the whole, viz.
that John is great-uncle-in-law to Richard, I cannot be
said to understand the proposition. In like manner, I
may take a just view of a man's conduct, and therefore
apprehend it, and yet may profess that I cannot under-
stand it ; that is, I have not the key to it, and do not
see its consistency in detail : I have no just conception
of it. Apprehension then is simply an intelligent ac-
ceptance of the idea, or of the fact which a proposition
enunciates. " Pride will have a fall ;" " Napoleon died
at St. Helena ;" I have no difficulty in entering into
the sentiment contained in the former of these, or into
the fact declared in the latter ; that is, I apprehend
them both.
Now apprehension, as I have said, has two subject-
matters : — according as language expresses things ex-
ternal to us, or our own thoughts, so is apprehension
real or notional. It is notional in the grammarian, it
is real in the experimentalist. The grammarian has to
determine the force of words and phrases ; he has to
master the structure of sentences and, the composition of
paragraphs ; he has to compare language with language,
to ascertain the common ideas expressed under different
idiomatic forms, and to achieve the difficult work of re-
casting the mind of the original author in the mould of
a translation. On the other hand, the philosopher or
experimentalist aims at investigating, questioning, as-
certaining facts, causes, effects, actions, qualities : these
are things, and he makes his words distinctly subordi-
nate to these, as means to an end. The primary duty of
The apprehension of Propositions. 2 1
a literary man is to have clear conceptions, and to be
exact and intelligible in expressing them ; but in a
philosopher it is a merit even to be not utterly vague,
inchoate and obscure in his teaching, and if he fails
even of this low standard of language, we remind
ourselves that his obscurity perhaps is owing to his
depth. No power of words in a lecturer would be suffi-
cient to make psychology easy to his hearers ; if they
are to profit by him, they must throw their minds into
the matters in discussion, must accompany his treatment
of them with an active, personal concurrence, and inter-
pret for themselves, as he proceeds, the dim suggestions
and adumbrations of objects, which he has a right to
presuppose, while he uses them, as images existing in
their apprehension as well as in his own.
In something of a parallel way it is the least pardon-
able fault in an Orator to fail in clearness of style, and
the most pardonable fault of a Poet.
So again, an Economist is dealing with facts ; what-
ever there is of theory in his work professes to be
founded on facts, by facts alone must his sense be inter-
preted, and to those only who are well furnished with
the necessary facts does he address himself ; yet a clever
schoolboy, from a thorough grammatical knowledge of
both languages, might turn into English a French trea-
tise on national wealth, produce, consumption, labour,
profits, measures of value, public debt, and the circu-
lating medium, with an apprehension of what it was
that his author was stating sufficient for making it clear
to an English reader, while he had not the faintest concep-
tion himself what the treatise, which he was translating.
22 The apprehension of Propositions.
really determined. The man uses language as the
vehicle of things, and the boy of abstractions.
Hence in literary examinations, it is a test of good
scholarship to be able to construe aright, without the
aid of understanding the sentiment, action, or historical
occurrence conveyed in the passage thus accurately ren-
dered, let it be a battle in Livy, or some subtle train of
thought in Virgil or Pindar. And those who have
acquitted themselves best in the trial, will often be dis-
posed to think they have most notably failed, for the
very reason that they have been too busy with the gram-
mar of each sentence, as it came, to have been able, as
they construed on, to enter into the facts or the feelings,
which, unknown to themselves, they were bringing out
of it.
To take a very different instance of this contrast be-
tween notions and facts ; — pathology and medicine, in
the interests of science, and as a protection to the prac-
titioner, veil the shocking realities of disease and physical
suffering under anotional phraseology,under the abstract
terms of debility, distress, irritability, paroxysm, and a
host of Greek and Latin words. The arts of medicine
and surgery are necessarily experimental ; but for
writing and conversing on these subjects they require
to be stripped of the association of the facts from which
they are derived.
Such are the two modes of apprehension. The terms
of a proposition do or do not stand for things. If they
do, then they are singular terms, for all things that are,
are units. But if they do not stand for things they must
stand for notions, and are common terms. Singular
The apprehension of Propositions. 23
nouns come from experience, common from abstraction.
The apprehension of the former I call real, and of the
latter notional. Now let us look at this difference
between them more narrowly.
1. Real Apprehension, is, as I have said, in the first
instance an experience or information about the concrete.
Now, when these informations are in fact presented to
us, (that is, when they are directly subjected to our
bodily senses or our mental sensations, as when we sa}^,
" The sun shines,^^ or " The prospect is charming," or
indirectly by means of a picture or even a narrative,)
then there is no difiSculty in determining what is meant
by saying that our enunciation of a proposition concern-
ing them implies an apprehension of things ; because
we can actually point out the objects which they
indicate. But supposing those things are no longer
before us, supposing they have passed beyond our field
of view, or the book is closed in which the description of
them occurs, how can an apprehension of things be said
to remain to us ? Yes, it remains on our minds by means
of the faculty of memory. Memory consists in a present
imagination of things that are past ', memory retains
the impressions and likenesses of what they were when
before us ; and when we make use of the proposition
which refers to them, it supplies us with objects by
which to interpret it. They are things still, as being
the reflections of things in a mental mirror.
Hence the poet calls memory " the mind's eye." I
am in a foreign country among unfamiliar sights ; at
will I am able to conjure up before me the vision of my
home, and all that belongs to it, its rooms and their fur-
24 The apprehension of Propositio?is.
iiiture, its books^ its inmates, their countenances, looks
and movements. I see those who once were there and
are no more ; past scenes, and the very expression of the
features, and the tones of the voices, of those who took
part in them, in a time of trial or difficulty. I create
nothing ; I see the facsimiles of facts ; and of these fac-
similes the words and propositions which I use concern-
ing them are from habitual association the proper or the
sole expression.
And so again, I may have seen a celebrated painting,
or some great pageant, or some public man ; and I have
on my memory stored up and ready at hand, but latent,
an impress more or less distinct of that experience. The
words " the Madonna di S. Sisto," or " the last Corona-
tion," or '^ the Duke of Wellington," have power to
revive that impress of it. Memory has to do with indi-
vidual things and nothing that is not individual. And
my apprehension of its notices is conveyed in a collec-
tion of singular and real propositions.
I have hitherto been adducing instances from (for the
most part) objects of sight; but the memory preserves
the impress, though not so vivid, of the experiences
which come to us through our other senses also. The
memory of a beautiful air, or the scent of a particular
tiower, as far as any remembrance remains of it, is the
continued presence in our minds of a likeness of it, which
its actual presence has left there. I can bring before
me the music of the Adeste Fideles, as if I were actually
hearing it ; and the scent of a clematis as if I were in
my garden ; and the flavour of a peach as if it were in
season ] and the thought I have of all these is as of some-
The apprehension of Propositions. 2 5
thing individual and from without, — as much as the
things themselves, the tune, the scent, and the flavour,
are from without, — though, compared with the things
themselves, these images (as they may be called) are
faint and intermitting.
Nor need such an image be in any sense an abstrac-
tion; though I may have eaten a hundred peaches
in times past, the impression, which remains on my
memory of the flavour, may be of any of them, of the
ten, twenty, thirty units, as the case may be, not a
general notion, distinct from every one of them, and
formed from all of them by a fabrication of my mind.
And so again the apprehension which we have of our
past mental acts of any kind, of hope, inquiry, efibrt,
triumph, disappointment, suspicion, hatred, and a hun-
dred others, is an apprehension of the memory of those
definite acts, and therefore an apprehension of things ;
not to say that many of them do not need memory, but
are such as admit of being actually summoned and re-
peated at our will. Such an apprehension again is
elicited by propositions embodying the notices of our
history, of our pursuits and their results, of our friends,
of our bereavements, of our illnesses, of our fortunes,
which remain imprinted upon our memory as sharply
and deeply as is any recollection of sight. Nay, and
such recollections may have in them an individuality and
completeness which outlives the impressions made by
sensible objects. The memory of countenances and of
places in times past may fade away from the mind; but
the vivid image of certain anxieties or deliverances never.
And by means of these particular and personal expe-
26 The apprehension of Propositions.
riences,thus impressed upon us, we attain an apprehen-
sion of what such things are at other times when we
have not experience of them ; an apprehension of sights
and sounds, of colours and forms, of places and persons,
of mental acts and states, parallel to our actual expe-
riences, such, that, when we meet with definite proposi-
tions expressive of them, our apprehension cannot be
called abstract and notional. If I am told " there is a
raging fire in London," or " London is on fire," " fire "
need not be a common noun in my apprehension more
than " London." The word may recall to my memory
the experience of a fire which I have known elsewhere,
or of some vivid description which I have read. It is of
course difficult to draw the line and to say where the
office of memory ends, and where abstraction takes its
place ; and again, as I said in my first pages, the same
proposition is to one man an image, to another a notion;
but still there is a host of predicates, of the most various
kinds, '^ lovely,'' " vulgar," " a conceited man," " a
manufacturing town," " a catastrophe," and any num-
ber of others, which, though as predicates they would
be accounted common nouns, are in fact in the mouths
of particular persons singular, as conveying images of
things individual, as the rustic in Virgil says, —
"Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, MelibcDe, putavi,
Stultus ego, huic nostrte simileiu."
And so the child's idea of a king, as derived from his
picture-book, will be that of a fierce or stern or vener-
able man, seated above a flight of steps, with a crown on
his head and a sceptre in his hand. In these two in-
stances indeed the experience does but mislead, when
The apprehension of Propositions. 27
applied to the unknown ; but it often happens on the
contrary, that it is a serviceable help, especially when a
man has large experiences and has learned to distinguish
between them and apply them duly, as in the instance
of the hero " who knew many cities of men and many
minds/^
Further, we are able by an inventive faculty, or, as
I may call it, the faculty of composition, to follow the
descriptions of things which have never come before
us, and to form, out of such passive impressions as ex-
perience has heretofore left on our minds, new images,
which, though mental creations, are in no sense abstrac-
tions, and though ideal, are not notional. They are
concrete units in the minds both of the party describing
and the party informed of them. Thus I may never
have seen a palm or a banana, but I have conversed
with those who have, or I have read graphic accounts
of it, and, from my own previous knowledge of other
trees, have been able with so ready an intelligence to
interpret their language, and to light up such an image
of it in my thoughts, that, were it not that I never was
in the countries where the tree is found, I should fancy
that I had actually seen it. Hence again it is the very
praise we give to the characters of some great poet or
historian that he is so individual. I am able as it
were to gaze on Tiberius, as Tacitus draws him, and to
figure to myself our James the First, as he is painted
in Scott's Eomance. The assassination of Csesar, his
" Et tu. Brute ? " his collecting his robes about him,
and his fall under Pompey's statue, all this becomes a
fact to me and an object of real apprehension. Thus
28 The apprehension of Propositions.
it is that we live in the past and in the distant ; by
means of our capacity of intei-preting the statements of
others about former ages or foreign climes by the lights
of our own experience. The picture, which historians
are able to bring before us, of Caesar's death, derives
its vividness and effect from its virtual appeal to the
various images of our memory.
This faculty of composition is of course a step beyond
experience, but we have now reached its furthest point;
it is mainly limited as regards its materials, by the sense
of sight. As regards the other senses, new images can-
not well be elicited and shaped out of old experiences.
No description, however complete, could convey to my
mind an exact likeness of a tune or an harmony, which
I have never heard ; and still less of a scent, which I
have never smelt. Generic resemblances and meta-
phorical substitutes are indeed producible; but I should
not acquire any real knowledge of the Scotch air
" There's nae luck " by being told it was like " Auld
lang syne," or " Robin Gray ;" and if I said that
Mozart's melodies were as a summer sky or as the
breath of Zephyr, I should be better understood by
those who knew Mozart than by those who did not.
Such vague illustrations suggest intellectual notions,
not images.
And quite as diflScult is it to create or to apprehend
by description images of mental facts, of which we
have no direct experience. I may indeed, as I have
already said, bring home to my mind so complex a fact
as an historical character, by composition out of my
experiences about character generally; Tiberius, James
The apprehension of Propositions. 29
the First, Louis the Eleventh, or Napoleon ; but who
is able to infuse into me, or how shall I imbibe, a sense
of the peculiarities of the style of Cicero or Virgil, if
I have not read their writings ? or how shall I gain a
shadow of a perception of the wit or the grace ascribed
to the conversation of the French salons, being myself
an untravelled John Bull ? And so again, as regards
the affections and passions of our nature, they are sui
(/CTiem respectively, and incommensurable, and must be
severally experienced in order to be apprehended really.
I can understand the rabbia of a native of Southern
Europe, if I am of a passionate temper myself; and
the taste for speculation or betting found in great
traders or on the turf, if I am fond of enterprise or
games of chance ; but on the other hand, not all the
possible descriptions of headlong love will make me
comprehend the deUHum, if I never have had a fit of
it ; nor will ever so many sermons about the inward
satisfaction of strict conscientiousness create in my
mind the image of a virtuous action and its attendant
sentiments, if I have been brought up to lie, thieve
and indulge my appetites. Thus we meet with men of
the world who cannot enter into the very idea of devo-
tion, and think, for instance, that, from the nature of
the case, a life of religious seclusion must be either
one of unutterable dreariness or abandoned sensuality,
because they know of no exercise of the affections but
what is merely human ; and with others again, who,
living in the home of their own selfishness, ridicule as
something fanatical and pitiable the self-sacrifices of
generous high-mindedness and chivalrous honour.
30 The apprehension of Propositions.
They cannot create images of these things, any more
than children ou the contrary can of vice, when they
ask whereabouts and who the bad men are ; for they
have no personal memories, and have to content them-
selves with notions drawn from books or from what
others tell them.
So much on the apprehension of things and on the.
real in our use of language; now let us pass on to
the notional sense.
2. Experience tells us only of individual things, and
these things are innumerable. Our minds might have
been so constructed as to be able to receive and retain
an exact image of each of these various objects, one by
one, as it came before us, but only in and for itself,
without the power of comparing it with any of the
others. But this is not our case : on the contrary, to
compare and to contrast are among the most prominent
and busy of our intellectual functions. Instinctively,
even though unconsciously, we are ever instituting
comparisons between the manifold phenomena of the
external world, as we meet with them, criticizing, re-
ferring to a standard, collecting, analysing them. Nay,
as if by one and the same action, as soon as we perceive
them, we also perceive that they are like each other or
unlike, or rather both like and unlike at once. We
apprehend spontaneously, even before we set about
apprehending, that man is like man, yet unlike j and
unlike a horse, a tree, a mountain, or a monument, yet
in some, though not the same respects, like each of
them. And in consequence, as I have said, we are ever
grouping and discriminating, measuring and sounding,
The apprehension of Propositions. 31
framing cross classes and cross divisions^ and thereby-
rising from particulars to generals, that is from images
to notions.
In processes of this kind we regard things, not as
they are in themselves, but mainly as they stand in
relation to each other. We look at nothing simply
for its own sake; we cannot look at any one thing
without keeping our eyes on a multitude of other
things besides. " Man '^ is no longer what he really
is, an individual presented to us by our senses, but as
we read him in the light of those comparisons and
contrasts which we have made him suggest to us. He
is attenuated into an aspect, or relegated to his place
in a classification. Thus his appellation is made to
suggest, not the real being which he is in this or that
specimen of himself, but a definition. If I might use
a harsh metaphor, I should say he is made the loga-
rithm of his true self, and in that shape is worked
with the ease and satisfaction of logarithms.
It is plain what a different sense language will bear
in this system of intellectual notions from what it has
when it is the representative of things : and such a
use of it is not only the very foundation of all science,
but may be, and is, carried out in literature and in the
ordinary intercourse of man with man. And thus it
comes to pass that individual propositions about the
concrete almost cease to be, and are diluted or starved
into abstract notions. The events of history and the
characters who figure in it Icfse their individuality.
States and governments, society and its component
parts, cities, nations, even the physical face of the
3 2 The apprehension of Propositions.
country, things past, and things contemporary, all that
fulness of meaning which I have described as accruing
to language from experience, now that experience is
absent, necessarily becomes to the multitude of men
nothing but a heap of notions, little more intelligible
than the beauties of a prospect to the short-sighted,
or the music of a great master to a listener who has
no ear.
I suppose most men will recollect in their past years
how many mistakes they have made about persons,
parties, local occurrences, nations and the like, of
which at the time they had no actual knowledge of
their own : how ashamed or how amused they have
since been at their own gratuitous idealism when they
came into possession of the real facts concerning them.
They were accustomed to treat the definite Titus or
Sempronius as the quidam homo, the individuum
vagum of the logician. They spoke of his opinions,
his motives, his practices, as their traditional rule for
the species Titus or Sempronius enjoined. In order to
find out what individual men in flesh and blood were,
they fancied that they had nothing to do but to refer
to commonplaces, alphabetically arranged. Thus they
were well up with the character of a Whig statesman
or Tory magnate, a Wesleyan, a Congregationalist, a
parson, a priest, a philanthropist, a writer of controversy,
a sceptic; and found themselves prepared, without the
trouble of direct inquiry, to draw the individual after
the peculiarities of his type. And so with national
character ; the late Duke of Wellington must have
been impulsive, quarrelsome, witty, clever at repartee.
The apprehension of Propositions. 3 3
for he was an Irishman ; in like manner, we must have
cold and selfish Scots, crafty Italians, vulgar Americans,
and Frenchmen, half tiger, half monkey. As to the
French, those who are old enough to recollect the
wars with Napoleon, know what eccentric notions were
popularly entertained about them in England ; how it
was even a surprise to find some military man, who
was a prisoner of war, to be tall and stout, because it
was a received idea that all Frenchmen were undersized
and lived on frogs.
Such again are the ideal personages who figure in
romances and dramas of the old school; tyrants, monks,
crusaders, princes in disguise, and captive damsels ; or
benevolent or angry fathers, and spendthrift heirs ; like
the symbolical characters in some of Shakespeare's plays,
" a Tapster,^' or " a Lord Mayor," or in the stage direc-
tion '^ Enter two murderers.^'
What I have been illustrating in the case of persons,
might be instanced in regard to places, transactions,
physical calamities, events in history. Words which
are used by an eye-witness to express things, unless
he be especially eloquent or graphic, may only convey
general notions. Such is, and ever must be, the popular
and ordinary mode of apprehending language. On
only few subjects have any of us the opportunity of
realizing in our minds what we speak and hear about ;
and we fancy that we are doing justice to individual
men and things by making them a mere synthesis of
qualities, as if any number whatever of abstractions
would, by being fused together, be equivalent to one
concrete.
s
34 The apprehension of Propositions.
Here then we have two modes of thought, both using
the same woi'ds, both having one origin, yet with nothing
in common in their results. The informations of sense
and sensation are the initial basis of both of them ; bat
in the one we take hold of objects from within them, and
in the other we view them from outside of them ; we
perpetuate them as images in the one case, we transform
them into notions in the other. And natural to us as
are both processes in their first elements and in their
growth, however divergent and independent in their
direction, they cannot really be inconsistent with each
other j yet no one from the sight of a horse or a dog
would be able to anticipate its zoological definition, nor
from a knowledge of its definition to draw such a picture
as would direct the eye to the living specimen.
Each use of propositions has its own excellence and
serviceableness, and each has its own imperfection. To
apprehend uotionally is to have breadth of mind, but to
be shallow ; to apprehend really is to be deep, but to be
narrow-minded. The latter is the conservative principle
of knowledge, and the former the principle of its advance-
ment. Without the apprehension of notions, we should
for ever pace round one small circle of knowledge;
without a firm hold upon things, we shall waste our-
selves in vague speculations. However, real apprehen-
sion has the precedence, as being the scope and end
and the test of notional ; and the fuller is the mind's
hold upon things or what it considers such, the more
fertile is it in its aspects of them, and the more practi-
cal in its definitions.
Of coarse, as these two are not inconsistent with each
The apprehension of Propositions, 3 5
other, they may co-exist in the same mind. Indeed
there is no one who does not to a certain extent exercise
both the one and the other. Viewed in relation to Assent,
which has led to my speaking of them, they do not in
any way affect the nature of Assent itself, which is in
all cases absolute and unconditional ; but they give it an
external character corresponding respectively to their
own : so much so, that at first sight it might seem as if
Assent admitted of degrees, on account of the variation
of vividness in these different apprehensions. As
notions come of abstractions, so images come of experi-
ences; the more fully the mind is occupied by an
experience, the keener will be its assent to it, if it
assents, and on the other hand, the duller will be its
assent and the less operative, the more it is engaged
with an abstraction ; and thus a scale of assents is con-
ceivable, either in the instance of one mind upon
different subjects, or of many minds upon one subject,
varying from an assent which looks like mere inference
up to a belief both intense and practical, — from the
acceptance which we accord to some accidental news
of the day to the supernatural dogmatic faith of the
Christian.
It follows to treat of Assent under this double aspect
of its subject-matter, — assent to notions, and assent to
things.
D ri
CHAPTER ly.
NOTIONAL AND REAL ASSENT.
1. I HAVE said that our apprehension of a proposition
varies in strength, and that it is stronger when it is con-
cerned with a proposition expressive to us of things than
when concerned with a proposition expressive of notions ;
and I have given this reason for it, viz. that what is
concrete exerts a force and makes an impression on the
mind which nothing abstract can rival. That is, I have
argued that, because the object is more powerful, there-
fore so is the apprehension of it.
I do not think it unfair reasoning thus to take the
Apprehension for its object. The mind is ever stimulated
in proportion to the cause stimulating it. Sights, for
instance, sway us, as scents do not ; whether this be
owing to a greater power in the thing seen, or to a
greater receptivity and expansiveness in the sense of
seeing, is a superfluous question. The strong object
would make the apprehension strong. Our sense of
seeing is able to open to its object, as our sense of smell
cannot open to its own. Its objects are able to awaken
the mind, take possession qf it, inspire it, act through it.
Notional and Real Assent. 3 7
witli an energy and variousness whicli is not found in
the case of scents and their apprehension. Since we
cannot draw the line between the object and the act, I
am at liberty to say, as I have said, that, as is the thing
apprehended, so is the apprehension.
. And so in like manner as regards apprehension of
mental objects. If an image derived from experience or
information is stronger than an abstraction, conception,
or conclusion — if I am more arrested by our Lord^s
bearing before Pilate and Herod than by the " Justum et
tenacem " &c. of the poet, more arrested by His Voice
saying to us, " Give to him that asketh thee,^^ than by
the best arguments of the Economist against indiscrimi-
nate almsgiving, it does not matter for my present pur-
pose whether the objects give strength to the apprehen-
sion or the apprehension gives large admittance into the
mind to the object. It is in human nature to be more
affected by the concrete than by the abstract ; it may be
the reverse with other beings. The apprehension, then,
may be as fairly said to possess the force which acts
upon us, as the object apprehended.
2, Real apprehension, then, may be pronounced
stronger than notional, because things, which are its
objects, are confessedly more impressive and aff'ective
than notions, which are the objects of notional. Experi-
ences and their images strike and occupy the mind, as
abstractions and their combinations do not. Next, pass-
ing on to Assent, I observe that "it is this variation m
the mind's apprehension of an object to which it
assents, and not any incompleteness in the assent itself
that leads us to speak of strong and weak assents, as
38 Notional and Real Assent,
if Assent itself admitted of degrees. In either mode of
apprehension, be it real or be it notional, the assent
preserves its essential characteristic of being uncondi-
tional. The assent of a Stoic to the " Justum et tena-
cem ^' &c. may be as genuine an assent, as absolute
and entire, as little admitting of degree or variation, as
distinct from an act of inference, as the assent of a
Christian to the history of our Lord's Passion in the
Gospel.
3. However, characteristic as it is of Assent, to be thus
in its nature simply one and indivisible, and thereby
essentially different from Inference, which is ever vary-
ing in strength, never quite at the same pitch in any two
of its acts, still it is at the same time true that it may be
difficult in fact, by external tokens, to distinguish given
acts of assent from given acts of inference. Thus, where-
as no one could possibly confuse the real assent of a
Christian to the fact of our Lord's crucifixion, with the
notional acceptance of it, as a point of history, on the
part of a philosophical heathen (so removed from each
other, toto coelo, are the respective modes of apprehend-
ing it in the two cases, though in both the assent is in
its nature one and the same), nevertheless it would be
easy to mistake the Stoic's notional assent, genuine
though it might be, to the moral nobleness of the just
man " struggling in the storms of fate," for a mere act
of inference resulting from the principles of his Stoical
profession, or again for an assent merely to the infer-
ential necessity of the nobleness of that struggle.
Nothing, indeed, is more common than to praise men
for their consistency to their principles, whatever those
Notional and Real Assent. 39
principles are, that is, to praise them on an inference,
withoat thereby implying any assent to the principles
themselves.
The cause of this resemblance between acts so distinct
is obvious. Eesemblance exists only in cases of notional
assents ; when the assent is given to notions, then indeed
it is possible to hesitate in deciding whether it is assent
or inference, whether the mind is merely without doubt
or whether it is actually certain. And the reason is
this : notional Assent seems like Inference, because the
q,pprehension which accompanies acts of inference is
notional also, — because Inference is engaged for the
most part on notional propositions, both premiss and
conclusion. This point, which I have implied through-
out, I here distinctly record, and shall enlarge upon
hereafter. Only propositions about individuals are not
notional, and these are seldom the matter of inference.
Thus, did the Stoic infer the fact of our Lord^s death
instead of assenting to it, that proposition as inferred
would have been as much an abstraction to him as the
" Justum," &c.; nay further, the "Justus et tenax" was
at least a notion in his mind, but "Jesus Christ" would,
in the schools of Athens or of Rome, have stood for less,
for an unknown being, the x or y of a formula. Except
then in some of the cases of singular conclusions, in-
ferences are employed on notions, unless, I say, they are
employed on mere symbols ; and, indeed, when they are
symbolical, then are they clearest and most cogent, as I
shall hereafter show. The next clearest are such as
carry out the necessary results of previous classifica-
tions, and therefore may be called definitions or con-
40 Notional and Real Assent,
elusions, as we please. For instance, having divided
beings into their classes, the definition of man is in-
evitable.
4. We may call it then the normal state of Inference
to apprehend propositions as notions ; and we may
call it the normal state of Assent to apprehend pro-
positions as things. If notional apprehension is most
congenial to Inference, real apprehension will be the
most natural concomitant on Assent. An act of Infe-
rence includes in its object the dependence of its thesis
upon its premisses, that is, upon a relation, which is
an abstraction ; but an act of Assent rests wholly on
the thesis as its object, and the reality of the thesis is
almost a condition of its unconditionality.
5. I am led on to make one remark more, and it
shall be my last.
An act of assent, it seems, is the most perfect and
highest of its kind, when it is exercised on propositions,
which are apprehended as experiences and images,
that is, which stand for things ; and, on the other hand,
an act of inference is the most perfect and highest of
its kind, when it is exercised on propositions which
are apprehended as notions, that is, which are creations
of the mind. An act of inference indeed may be made
with either of these modes of apprehension j so may
an act of assent ; but when inferences are exercised on
things, they tend to be conjectures or presentiments,
without logical force ; and when assents are exercised
on notions, they tend to be mere assertions without
any personal hold on them on the part of those who
make them. If this be so, the paradox is true, that.
Notional and Real Assent. 4 1
when Inference is clearest, Assent may be least forcible,
and, when Assent is most intense. Inference may be
least distinct ; — for, though acts of assent require pre-
vious acts of inference, they require them, not as
adequate causes, but as sine qua non conditions ; and,
while the apprehension strengthens Assent, Inference
often weakens the apprehension.
42 Notional Assents.
§ I. Notional Assents.
I shall consider Assent made to propositions which
express abstractions or notions under five heads; which
I shall call Profession, Credence, Opinion, Presumption,
and Speculation.
1. Profession.
There are assents so feeble and superficial, as to be
little more than assertions. I class them all together
under the head of Profession. Such are the assents
made upon habit and without reflection ; as when a man
calls himself a Tory or a Liberal, as having been brought
up as such ; or again, when he adopts as a matter of
course the literary or other fashions of the day, admiring
the poems, or the novels, or the music, or the personages,
or the costume, or the wines, or the manners, which
happen to be popular, or are patronized in the higher
circles. Such again are the assents of men of wavering
restless minds, who take up and then abandon beliefs
80 readily, so suddenly, as to make it appear that they
had no view (as it is called) on the matter they pro-
fessed, and did not know to what they assented or why.
Profession. 43
Then, again, when men say they have no doubt of a
thing, this is a case, in which it is difficult to determine
whether they assent to it, infer it, or consider it highly
probable. There are many cases, indeed, in which it
is impossible to discriminate between assent, inference,
and assertion, on account of the otiose, passive, inchoate
character of the act in question. If I say that to-
morrow will be fine, what does this enunciation mean ?
Perhaps it means that it ought to be fine, if the glass
tells truly; then it is the inference of a probability.
Perhaps it means no more than a surmise, because it is
fine to-day, or has been so for the week past. And
perhaps it is a compliance with the word of another, in
which case it is sometimes a real assent, sometimes a
polite assertion or a wish.
Many a disciple of a philosophical school, who talks
fluently, does but assert, when he seems to assent to the
dicta of his master, little as he may be aware of it.
Nor is he secured against this self-deception by know-
ing the arguments on which those dicta rest, for he may
learn the arguments by heart, as a careless schoolboy
gets up his Euclid. This practice of asserting simply
on authority, with the pretence and without the reality
of assent, is what is meant by formalism. To say "I
do not understand a proposition, but I accept it on
authority,'* is not formalism, but faith ; it is not a direct
assent to the proposition, still it is an assent to the
authority which enunciates it ; but what I here speak
of is professing to understand without understanding.
It is thus that political and religious watchwords are
created ; first one man of name and then another
44 Notional Assents.
adopts them, till their use becomes popular, and then
every one professes them, because every one else does.
Such words are "liberality,-'^ "progress," "light," *'civi-
lization;" such are "justification by faith only,'^ "vital
religion," "private judgment," "the Bible and nothing
but the Bible." Such again are "Rationalism," "Galli-
canism," "Jesuitism," " Ultramontanism" — all of which,
in the mouths of conscientious thinkers, have a definite
meaning, but are used by the multitude as war-cries,
nicknames, and shibboleths, with scarcely enough of the
scantiest grammatipal apprehension of them to allow of
their being considered in truth more than assertions.
Thus, instances occur now and then, when, in conse-
quence of the urgency of some fashionable superstition
or popular delusion, some eminent scientific authority is
provoked to come forward, and to set the world right
by his " ipse dixit." He, indeed, himself knows very
well what he is about ; he has a right to speak, and his
reasonings and conclusions are sufficient, not only for his
own, but for general assent, and, it may be, are as
simply true and impregnable, as they are authoritative ;
but an intelligent hold on the matter in dispute, such as
he has himself, cannot be expected in the case of men
in general. They, nevertheless, one and all, repeat and
retail his arguments, as suddenly as if they had not to
study them, as heartily as if they understood them,
changing round and becoming as strong antagonists of
the err or which their master has exposed, as if they had
never been its advocates. If their word is to be taken,
it is not simply his authority that moves them, which
would be sensible enough and suitable in them, both
Profession. 45
apprehension and assent being in that case grounded
on the maxim " Cuique in arte sua credendum/' but so
far forth as they disown this motive, and claim to judge
in a scientific question of the worth of arguments which
require some real knowledge, they are little better, not
of course in a very serious matter, than pretenders and
formalists.
Not only authority, but Inference also may impose on
us assents which in themselves are little better than as-
sertions, and which, so far as they are assents, can only
be notional assents, as being assents, not to the propo-
sitions inferred, but to the truth of those propositions.
For instance, it can be proved by irrefragable calcula-
tions, that the stars are not less than billions of miles
distant from the earth ; and the process of calculation,
upon which such statements are made, is not so difficult
as to require authority to secure our acceptance of both
it and of them ; yet who can say that he has any real,
nay, any notional apprehension of a billion or a trillion ?
We can, indeed, have some notion of it, if we analyze it
into its factors, if we compare it with other numbers, or
if we illustrate it by analogies or by its implications ;
but I am speaking of the vast number in itself. We
cannot assent to a proposition of which it is the predicate ;
we can but assent to the truth of it.
This leads me to the question, whether belief in a
mystery can be more than an assertion. I consider it
can be an assent, and my reasons for saying so are as
follows : — A mystery is a proposition conveying incom-
patible notions, or is a statement of the inconceivable.
Now we can assent to propositions (and a mystery is a
46 Notional Assents.
proposition), provided we can apprehend them; therefore
we can assent to a mystery, for, unless we in some sense
apprehended it, we should not recognize it to be a mys-
tery, that is, a statement uniting incompatible notions.
The same act, then, which enables us to discern that the
words of the proposition express a mystery, capacitates
us for assenting to it. Words which make nonsense, do
not make a mystery. No one would call Warton's line —
" Revolving swans proclaim the welkin near " — an
inconceivable assertion. It is equally plain, that the
assent which we give to mysteries, as such, is notional
assent ; for, by the supposition, it is assent to proposi-
tions which we cannot conceive, whereas, if we had had
experience of them, we should be able to conceive them,
and without experience assent is not real.
But the question follows. Can processes of inference
end in a mystery ? that is, not only in what is incom-
prehensible, that the stars are billions of miles from each
other, but in what is inconceivable, in the co-existence
of (seeming) incompatibilities ? For how, it may be
asked, can reason carry out notions into their contra-
dictories ? since all the developments of a truth must
from the nature of the case be consistent both with it
and with each other. I answer, certainly processes of
inference, however accurate, can end in mystery ; and I
solve the objection to such a doctrine thus :— our notion
of a thing may be only partially faithful to the original j
it may be in excess of the thing, or it may represent it
incompletely, and, in consequence, it may serve for it,
it may stand for it, only to a certain point, in certain
cases, but no further. After that point is reached, the
Profession, 47
notion and tlie thing part company; and then the
notion, if still used as the representative of the thing,
will work out conclusions, not inconsistent with itself,
but with the thing to which it no longer corresponds.
This is seen most familiary in the use of metaphors.
Thus, in an Oxford satire, which deservedly made a
sensation in its day, it is said that Vice " from its hard-
ness takes a polish too.^^ ^ Whence we might argue,
that, whereas Caliban was vicious, he was therefore
polished ; but politeness and Caliban are incompatible
notions. Or again, when some one said, perhaps to Dr.
Johnson, that a certain writer (say Hume) was a clear
thinker, he made answer, "All shallows are clear."
But supposing Hume to be in fact both a clear and a
deep thinker, yet supposing clearness and depth are in-
compatible in their literal sense, which the objection seems
to imply, and still in their full literal sense were to be
ascribed to Hume, then our reasoning about his intellect
■ has ended in the mystery, " Deep Hume is shallow ;"
whereas the contradiction lies, not in the reasoning, but
in the fancying that inadequate notions can be taken
as the exact representations of things.
Hence in science we sometimes use a definition or a
formula, not as exact, but as being sufficient for our
purpose, for working out certain conclusions, for a
practical approximation, the error being small, till a
certain point is reached. This is what in theological
investigations I should call an economy.
A like contrast between notions and the things which
» " The Oxford Spy." 1818 ; by J. S. Boone, p. 107.
48 Notional Assents.
they represent is the principle of suspense and curiosity
in those enigmatical sayings which were frequent in the
early stage of human society. In them the problem
proposed to the acuteness of the hearers, is to find some
real thing which may unite in itself certain conflicting
notions which in the question are attributed to it : " Out
of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came
forth sweetness /' or, " What creature is that, which in
the morning goes on four legs, at noon on two, and on
three in the evening ? '' The answer, which names the
thing, interprets and thereby limits the notions under
which it has been represented.
Let us take an example in algebra. Its calculus is
commonly used to investigate, not only the I'elations
of quantity generally, but geometrical facts in parti-
cular. Now it is at once too wide and too narrow
for such a purpose, fitting on to the doctrine of lines
and angles with a bad fit, as the coat of a short and
stout man might serve the needs of one who was tall
and slim. Certainly it works well for geometrical pur-
poses up to a certain point, as when it enables us to dis-
pense with the cumbrous method of proof in questions
of ratio and proportion, which is adopted in the fifth
book of Euclid ; but what are we to make of the fourth
power of a, when it is to be translated into geometrical
language ? If from this algebraical expression we deter-
mined that space admitted of four dimensions, we should
be enunciating a mystery, because we shouldbe applying
to space a notion which belongs to quantity. In this
case algebra is in excess of geometrical truth. Now let
us take an instance in which it falls short of geometry.
Professio7i. 49
— What is the meaning of the square root of minus a ?
Here the mystery is on the side of algebra; and, in
accordance with the principle which I am illustrating,
it has sometimes been considered as an abortive effort
to express, what is really beyond the capacity of alge-
braical notation, the direction and position of lines in
the third dimension of space, as well as their length
upon a plane. When the calculus is urged on by the
inevitable course of the working to do what it cannot do,
it stops short as if in resistance, and protests by an
absurdity.
Our notions of things are never simply commensurate
with the things themselves ; they are aspects of them,
more or less exact, and sometimes a mistake ab initio.
Take an instance from arithmetic : — We are accustomed
to subject all that exists to numeration; but, to be
correct, we are bound first to reduce to some level of
possible comparison the things which we wish to num-
ber. We must be able to say, not only that they are ten,
twenty, or a hundred, but so many definite somethings.
For instance, we could not without extravagance throw
together Napoleon's brain, ambition, hand, soul, smile,
height, and age at Marengo, and say that there were
seven of them, though there are seven words ; nor will
it even be enough to content ourselves with what may
be called a negative level, viz. that these seven are a
non-existing or a departed seven. Unless numeration is
to issue in nonsense, it must be conducted on conditions.
This being the case, there are, for what we know, col-
lections of beings, to whom the notion of number
cannot be attached, except catachrestically , because,
50 Notional Assents.
taken individually, no positive point of real agree-
ment can be found between them, by which to call
them. If indeed we can denote them by a plural noun,
then we can measure that plurality ; but if they agree
in nothing, they cannot agree in bearing a common
name, and to say that they amount to a thousand these
or those, is not to number them, but to count up a
certain number of names or words which we have
written down.
Thus, the Angels have been considered by divines to
have each of them a species to himself; and we may
fancy each of them so absolutely sui similis as to be
like nothing else, so that it would be as untrue to
speak of a thousand Angels as of a thousand Hannibals
or Ciceros. It will be said, indeed, that all beings but
One at least will come under the notion of creatures,
and are dependent upon that One ; but that is true of
the brain, smile, and height of Napoleon, which no one
would call three creatures. But, if all this be so, much
more does it apply to our speculations concerning the
Supreme Being, whom it may be unmeaning, not only
to number with other beings, but to subject to number
in regard to His own intrinsic characteristics. That
is, to apply arithmetical notions to Him may be as un-
philosophical as it is profane. Though He is at once
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the word " Trinity "
belongs to those notions of Him which are forced on
us by the necessity of our finite conceptions, the real
and immutable distinction which exists between Person
and Person implying in itself no infringement of His
feal and numerical Unity. And if it be asked how,
Profession. 5 1
if we cannot properly speak of Him as Three, we can
speak of Him as One, I reply that He is not One
in the way in which created things are severally units ;
for one, as applied to ourselves, is used in contrast to
two or three and a whole series of numbers ; but of the
Supreme Being it is safer to use the word,, monad "
than unit, for He has not even such relation to His
creatures as to allow, philosophically speaking, of our
contrasting Him with them.
Coming back to the main subject, which I have illus-
trated at the risk of digression, I observe, that an alleged
fact is not therefore impossible because it is incon-
ceivable; for the incompatible notions, in which consists
its inconceivableness, need not each of them really be-
long to it in that fulness which would involve their being
incompatible with each other. It is true indeed that I
deny the possibility of two straight lines enclosing a
space, on the ground of its being inconceivable ; but I
do so because a straight line is a notion and nothing
more, and not a thing to which I may have attached a
notion more or less unfaithful. I have defined a straight
line in my own way at my own pleasure; the ques-
tion is not one of facts at all, but of the consistency
with each other of definitions and their logical conse-
quences.
'* Space is not infinite, for nothing but the Creator is
such : " — starting from this thesis as a theological infor-
mation, to be assumed as a fact, though not one of ex-
perience, we arrive at once at an insoluble mystery; for,
if space be not infinite, it is finite, and finite space is a
contradiction in notions, space, as such, implying the
£ 2
52 Notional Assents.
absence of boundaries. Here again it is our notion that
carries us beyond the fact, and in opposition to it, show-
ing that from the first what we apprehend of space does
not in all respects correspond to the thing, of which
indeed we have no image.
This, then, is another instance in which the juxta-
position of notions by the logical faculty lands us in
what are commonly called mysteries. Notions are but
aspects of things ; the free deductions from one of these
aspects necessarily contradict the free deductions from
another. After proceeding in our investigations a cer-
tain way, suddenly a blank or a maze presents itself be-
fore the mental vision, as when the eye is confused by the
varying slides of a telescope. Thus, we believe in the
infinitude of the Divine Attributes, but we can have no
experience of infinitude as a fact ; the word stands for a
definition or a notion. Hence, when we try how to
reconcile in the moral world the fulness of mercy with
exactitude in sanctity and justice, or to explain that
the physical tokens of creative skill need not suggest
any want of creative power, we feel we are not masters
of our subject. We apprehend sufficiently to be able to
assent to these theological truths as mysteries j did we
not apprehend them at all, we should be merely assert-
ing ; though even then we might convert that assertion
into an assent, if we wished to do so, as I have already
shown, by making it the subject of q, proposition, and
predicating of it that it is true.
Credence. 53
2. Credence.
"What I mean by giving credence to propositions is
pretty much the same as having " no doubt " about
them. It is the sort of assent which we give to those
opinions and professed facts which are ever presenting
themselves to us without any effort of ours, and which
we commonly take for granted, thereby obtaining a
broad foundation of thought for ourselves, and a medium
of intercourse between ourselves and others. This form
of notional assent comprises a great variety of subject-
matters ; and is, as I have implied, of an otiose and passive
character, accepting whatever comes to hand, from what-
ever quarter, warranted or not, so that it convey nothing
on the face of it to its own disadvantage. From the
time that we begin to observe, think and reason, to
the final failure of our powers, we are ever acquiring
fresh and fresh informations by means of our senses,
and still more from others and from books. The friends
or strangers whom we fall in with in the course of the
day, the conversations or discussions to which we are
parties, the newspapers, the light reading of the season,
our recreations, our rambles in the country, our foreign
tours, all pour their contributions of intellectual matter
into the storehouses of our memory ; and, though much
may be lost, much is retained. These informations,
thus received with a spontaneous assent, constitute the
furniture of the mind, and make the difference between
its civilized condition and a state of nature. They are
its education, as far as general knowledge can so be
called ; and, though education is discipline as well as
54 Notional Assents.
learning, still, unless the mind implicitly welcomes the
truths, real or ostensible, which these informations
supply, it will gain neither formation nor a stimulus
for its activity and progress. Besides, to believe frankly
what it is told, is in the young an exercise of teach-
ableness and humility.
Credence is the means by which, in high and low, in
the man of the world and in the recluse, our bare and
barren nature is overrun and diversified from without
with a rich and living clothing. It is by such un-
grudging, prompt assents to what is offered to us so
lavishly, that we become possessed of the principles,
doctrines, sentiments, facts, which constitute useful, and
especially liberal knowledge. These various teachings,
shallow though they be, are of a breadth which secures
us against those lacunce of knowledge which are apt to
befall the professed student, and keep us up to the mark
in literature, in the arts, in history, and in public matters.
They give us in great measure our morality, our
politics, our social code, our art of life. They supply
the elements of public opinion, the watchwords of pa-
triotism, the standards of thought and action ; they are
our mutual understandings, our channels of sympathy,
our means of co-operation, and the bond of our civil
union. They become our moral language; we learn
them as we learn our mother tongue ; they distingish
us from foreigners ; they are, in each of us, not indeed
personal, but national characteristics.
This account of them implies that they are received
with a notional, not a real assent ; they are too manifold
to be received in any other way. Even the most prac-
Credence. 55
tised and earnest minds must needs be superficial in the
greater part of their attainments. They know just
enough on all subjects, in literature, history, politics,
philosophy, and art, to be able to converse sensibly on
them, and to understand those who are really deep in
one or other of them. This is what is called, with a
special appositeness, a gentleman's knowledge, as con-
trasted with that of a professional man, and is neither
worthless nor despicable, if used for its proper ends; but
it is never more than the furniture of the mind, as I
have called it ; it never is thoroughly assimilated with
it. Yet of course there is nothing to hinder those who
have even the largest stock of such notions from de-
voting themselves to one or other of the subjects to which
those notions belong, and mastering it with a real
apprehension ; and then their general knowledge of all
subjects may be made variously useful in the direction
of that particular study or pursuit which they have
selected.
I have been speaking of secular knowledge ; but re-
ligion may be made a subject of notional assent also,
and is especially so made in our own country. Theology,
as such, always is notional, as being scientific : religion,
as being personal, should be real ; but, except within a
small range of subjects, it commonly is not real in Eng-
land. As to Catholic populations, such as those of medi-
eval Europe, or the Spain of this day, or quasi- Catholic
as those of Russia, among them assent to rehgious
objects is real, not notional. To them the Supreme
Being, our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, Angels and Saints,
heaven and hell, are as present as if they were objects of
56 Notional Assents.
sight J but such a faith does not suit the genius of
modern England. There is in the literary world just
now an affectation of calling religion a " sentiment ;"
and it must be confessed that usually it is nothing more
with our own people, educated or rude. Objects are
barely necessary to it. I do not say so of old Calvinism
or Evangelical Eeligion ; I do not call the religion of
Leighton, Beveridge, Wesley, Thomas Scott, or Cecil
a mere sentiment ; nor do I so term the high Anglican-
ism of the present generation. But these are only de-
nominations, parties, schools, compared with the national
religion of England in its length and breadth. " Bible
Religion " is both the recognized title and the best
description of English religion.
It consists, not in rites or creeds, but mainly in
having the Bible read in Church, in the family, and
in private. Now I am far indeed from undervaluing
that mere knowledge of Scripture which is imparted
to the population thus promiscuously. At least in Eng-
land, it has to a certain point made up for great and
grievous losses in its Christianity. The reiteration
again and again, in fixed course in the public service,
of the words of inspired teachers under both Covenants,
and that in grave majestic English, has in matter of
fact been to our people a vast benefit. It has attuned
their minds to religious thoughts ; it has given them
a high moral standard ; it has served them in asso-
ciating religion with compositions which, even humanly
considered, are among the most sublime and beautiful
ever written ; especially, it has impressed upon them
the series of Divine Providences in behalf of man from
Credence. ^'j
his creation to his end, and, above all, the words,
deeds, and sacred suflerings of Him in whom all the
Providences of God centre.
So far the indiscriminate reading of Scripture has
been of service ; still, much more is necessaiy than the
benefits which I have enumerated, to answer to the
idea of a religion ; whereas our national form professes
to be little more than thus reading the Bible and living
a correct life. It is not a religion of persons and things,
of acts of faith and of direct devotion ; but of sacred
scenes and pious sentiments. It has been comparatively
careless of creed and catechism ; and has in conse-
quence shown little sense of the need of consistency in
the matter of its teaching. Its doctrines are not so
much facts, as stereotyped aspects of facts ; and it is
afraid, so to say, of walking round them. It induces
its followers to be content with this meagre view of
revealed truth ; or, rather, it is suspicious and protests,
or is frightened, as if it saw a figure in a picture move
out of its frame, when our Lord, the Blessed Virgin,
or the Holy Apostles, are spoken of as real beings,
and really such as Scripture implies them to be. I
am not denying that the assent which it inculcates
and elicits is genuine as regards its contracted range
of doctrine, but it is at best notional. What Scripture
especially illustrates from its first page to its last, is
God's Providence ; and that is nearly the only doctrine
held with a real assent by the mass of religious English-
men. Hence the Bible is so great a solace and refuge
to them in trouble. I repeat, I am not speaking of
particular schools and parties in England, whether of
58 Notional Assents.
the High Church or the Low, but of the mass of
piously-minded and well-living people in all ranks of
the community.
3. Opinion.
That class of assents which I have called Credence,
being a spontaneous acceptance of the various informa-
tions, which are by whatever means conveyed to our
minds, sometimes goes by the name of Opinion. When
we speak of a man's opinions, what do we mean, but the
collection of notions which he happens to have, and does
not easily part with, though he has neither sufficient
proof nor firm grasp of them ? This is true ; however.
Opinion is a word of various significations, and I prefer
to use it in my own. Besides standing for Credence, it
is sometimes taken to mean Conviction, as when we
speak of the "variety of religious opinions,'' or of being
"persecuted for religious opinions," or of our having
" no opinion on a particular point," or of another having
" no religious opinions." And sometimes it is used in
contrast with Conviction, as synonymous with a light
and casual, though genuine assent ; thus, if a man was
every day changing his mind, that is, his assents, we
might say, that he was very changeable in his opinions.
I shall here use the word to denote an assent, but an
assent to a proposition, not as true, but as probably true,
that is, to the probability of that which the proposition
enunciates ; and, as that probability may vary in
strength without limit, so may the cogency and moment
of the opinion. This account of Opinion may seem to
confuse it with Inference j for the strength of an infe-
opinion. 59
rence varies with its premisses, and is a probability ; but
the two acts of mind are really distinct. Opinion, as
being an assent, is independent of premisses. We have
opinions which we never think of defending by argu-
ment, though, of course, we think they can be so de-
fended. We are even obstinate in them, or what is
called "opinionated,'^ and may say that we have a right
to think just as we please, reason or no reason; whereas
Inference is in its nature and by its profession con-
ditional and uncertain. To say that " we shall have a
jSne hay-harvest if the present weather lasts," does not
come of the same state of mind as, " I am of opinion
that we shall have a fine hay-harvest this year.''
Opinion, thus explained, has more connexion with
Credence than with Inference. It differs from Credence
in these two points, viz. that, while Opinion explicitly
assents to the probability of a given proposition,
Credence is an implicit assent to its truth. It differs
from Credence in a third respect, viz. in being a reflex
act ; — when we take a thing for granted, we have
credence in it; when we begin to reflect upon our
credence, and to measure, estimate, and modify it, then
we are forming an opinion.
It is in this sense that Catholics speak of theological
opinion, in contrast with faith in dogma. It is much
more than an inferential act, but it is distinct from an
act of certitude. And this is really the sense which
Protestants give to the word, when they interpret it by
Conviction ; for their highest opinion in religion is,
generally speaking, an asent to a probability — as even
Butler has been understood or misunderstood to teach.
6o Notional Assents.
— and therefore consistent with toleration of its con-
tradictory.
Opinion, being such as I have described, is a notional
assent, for the predicate of the proposition, on which
it is exercised, is the abstract word " probable."
4. Presumption.
By Presumption I mean an assent to first principles ;
and by first principles I mean the propositions with
which we start in reasoning on any given subject-matter.
They are in consequence very numerous, and vary in
great measure with the persons who reason, according
to their judgment and power of assent, being received
by some minds, not by others, and only a few of them
received universally. They are all of them notions, not
images, because they express what is abstract, not
what is individual and from direct experience.
1. Sometimes our trust in our powers of reasoning
and memory, that is, our implicit assent to their telling
truly, is treated as a first principle; but we cannot
properly be said to have any trust in them as faculties.
At most we trust in particular acts of memory and
reasoning. We are sure there was a yesterday, and
that we did this or that in it ; we are sure that three
times six is eighteen, and that the diagonal of a square
is longer than the side. So far as this we may be said
to trust the mental act, by which the object of our assent
is verified ; but, in doing so, we imply no recognition
of a general power or faculty, or of any capability or
affection of our minds, over and above the particular
Presumption. 6i
act. We know indeed that we have a faculty by which
we remember, as we know we have a faculty by which
we breathe ; but we gain this knowledge by abstraction
or inference from its particular acts, not by direct ex-
perience. Nor do we trust in the faculty of memory
or reasoning as such, even after that we have inferred
its existence ; for its acts are ofben inaccurate, nor do
we invariably assent to them.
However, if I must speak my mind, I have another
ground for reluctance to speak of our trusting memory
or reasoning, except indeed by a figure of speech. It
seems to me unphilosophical to speak of trusting our-
selves. We are what we are, and we use, not trust our
faculties. To debate about trusting in a case like this, is
parallel to the confusion implied in wishing I had had
a choice if I would be created or no, or speculating
what I should be like, if I were born of other parents.
" Proximus sum egomet mihi.^^ Our consciousness of
self is prior to all questions of trust or assent. We act
according to our nature, by means of ourselves, when we
remember or reason . We are as little able to accept or
reject our mental constitution, as our being. We have
not the option ; we can but misuse or mar its functions.
We do not confront or bargain with ourselves ; and
therefore I cannot call the trustworthiness of the facul-
ties of memory and reasoning one of our first principles.
2. Next, as to the proposition, that there are things
existing external to ourselves, this I do consider a first
principle, and one of universal reception. It is founded
on an instinct ; I so call it, because the brute creation
possesses it. This instinct is directed towards individual
62 Notional Assents.
phenomena, one by one, and has nothing of the character
of a generalization ; and, since it exists in brutes, the
gift of reason is not a condition of its existence, and it
may justly be considered an instinct in man also. What
the human mind does is what brutes cannot do, viz. to
draw from our ever-recurring experiences of its testi-
mony in particulars a general proposition, and, because
this instinct or intuition acts whenever the phenomena
of sense present themselves, to lay down in broad terms,
by an inductive process, the great aphorism, that there
is an external world, and that all the phenomena of
sense proceed from it. This general proposition, to
which we go on to assent, goes {extensive, though not
intensive) far beyond our experience, illimitable as that
experience may be, and represents a notion.
3. I have spoken, and I think rightly spoken, of in-
stinct as a force which spontaneously impels us, not only
to bodily movements, but to mental acts. It is instinct
which leads the quasi-intelligent principle (whatever it
is) in brutes to perceive in the phenomena of sense a
something distinct from and beyond those phenomena.
It is instinct which impels the child to recognize in the
smiles or the frowns of a countenance which meets his
eyes, not only a being external to himself, but one whose
looks elicit in him confidence or fear. And, as he in-
stinctively interprets these physical phenomena, as
tokens of things beyond themselves, so from the sensa-
tions attendant upon certain classes of his thoughts and
actions he gains a perception of an external being, who
reads his mind, to whom he is responsible, who praises
and blames, who promises and threatens. As I am only
Presumption. 63
illustrating a general view bj examples^ I shall take this
analogy for granted here. As then we have our initial
knowledge of the universe through sense^ so do we in
the first instance begin to learn about its Lord and God
from conscience ; and, as from particular acts of that
instinct, which makes experiences, mere images (as they
ultimately are) upon the retina, the means of our per-
ceiving something real beyond them, we go on to draw
the general conclusion that there is a vast external world,
so from the recurring instances in which conscience acts,
forcing upon us importunately the mandate of a Superior,
we have fresh and fresh evidence of the existence of a
Sovereign Ruler, from whom those particular dictates
which we experience proceed ; so that, with limitations
which cannot here be made without digressing from my
main subject, we may, by means of that induction from
particular experiences of conscience, have as good a
warrant for concluding the Ubiquitous Presence of One
Supreme Master, as we have, from parallel experience
of sense, for assenting to the fact of a multiform and
vast world, material and mental.
However, this assent is notional, because we gene-
ralize a consistent, methodical form of Divine Unity and
Personality with Its attributes, from particular expe-
riences of the religious instinct, which are themselves,
only intensive, not extensive, and in the imagination,
not intellectually, notices of Its Presence ; though at the
same time that assent may become real of course, as may
the assent to the external world, viz. when we apply our
general knowledge to a particular instance of that know-
ledge, as, according to a former remark, the general
64 Notional Assents.
" varium et mutabile " was realized in Dido. And in
thus treating the origin of these great notions, I am not
forgetting the aid which from our earliest years we
receive from teachers, nor am I denying the influence of
certain original forms of thinking or formative ideas,
connatural with our minds, without which we could not
reason at all. I am only contemplating the mind as it
moves in fact, by whatever hidden mechanism ; as a
locomotive engine could not move without steam, but
still, under whatever number of forces, it certainly does
start from Birmingham and does arrive in London.
4. And so again, as regards the first principles
expressed in such propositions as "There is a right
and a wrong," " a true and a false," " a just and an
unjust," a " beautiful and a deformed ; " they are
abstractions to which we give a notional assent in
consequence of our particular experiences of qualities in
the concrete, to which we give a real assent. As we
form our notion of whiteness from the actual sight of
snow, milk, a lily, or a cloud, so, after experiencing the
sentiment of approbation which arises in us on the sight
of certain acts one by one, we go on to assign to that
sentiment a cause, and to those acts a quality, and we
give to this notional cause or quality the name of virtue,
which is an abstraction, not a thing. And in like
manner, when we have been affected by a certain specific
admiring pleasure at the sight of this or that concrete
object, we proceed by an arbitrary act of the mind to
give a name to the hypothetical cause or quality in the
abstract, which excites it. We speak of it as beautiful-
ness, and henceforth, when we call a thing beautiful, we
Presumption. 65
mean by the word a certain quality of things which
creates in us this special sensation.
These so-called first principles^ I say^ are really con-
clusions or abstractions from particular experiences :
and an assent to their existence is not an assent to
things or their images, but to notions, real assent being
confined to the propositions directly embodying those
experiences. Such notions indeed are an evidence
of the reality of the special sentiments in particular
instances, without which they would not have been
formed; but in themselves they are abstractions from
facts, not elementary truths prior to reasoning.
I am not of course dreaming of denying the objective
existence of the Moral Law, nor our instinctive recogni-
tion of the immutable difference in the moral quality of
acts, as elicited in us by one instance of them. Even
one act of cruelty, ingratitude, generosity, or justice
reveals to us at once intensive the immutable distinc-
tion between those qualities and their contraries ; that
is, in that particular instance and pro hac vice. From
such experience — an experience which is ever recurring
— we proceed to abstract and generalize ; and thus the
abstract proposition " There is a right and a wrong,''
as representing an act of inference, is received by the
mind with a notional, not a real assent. However, in
proportion as we obey the particular dictates which are
its tokens, so are we led on more and more to view it
in the association of those particulars, which are real,
and virtually to change our notion of it into the image
of that objective fact, which in each particular case it
undeniably is.
66 Notional Assents.
5. Another of these presumptions is the belief in
causation. It is to me a perplexity that grave authors
seem to enunciate as an intuitive truth, that every thing
must have a cause. If this were so, the voice of nature
would tell false ; for why in that case stop short at One,
who is Himself without cause ? The assent which we
give to the proposition, as a first principle, that nothing
happens without a cause, is derived, in the first instance,
from what we know of ourselves ; and we argue ana-
logically from what is within us to what is external to
us. One of the first experiences of an infant is that of
his willing and doing ; and, as time goes on, one of the
first temptations of the boy is to bring home to himself
the fact of his sovereign arbitrary power, though it be
at the price of waywardness, mischievousness, and dis-
obedience. And when his parents, as antagonists of
this wilfulness, begin to restrain him, and to bring his
mind and conduct into shape, then he has a second
series of experiences of cause and effect, and that upon
a principle or rule. Thus the notion of causation is one
of the first lessons which he learns from experience,
that experience limiting it to agents possessed of intelli-
gence and will. It is the notion of power combined
with a purpose and an end. Physical phenomena, as
such, are without sense; and experience teaches us
nothing about physical phenomena as causes. Accord-
ingly, wherever the world is young, the movements and
changes of physical nature have been and are spontane-
ously ascribed by its people to the presence and will of
hidden agents, who haunt every part of it, the woods,
the mountains and the streams, the air and the stars.
Presumption. 6^
for good or for evil ; — just as children again, by beating
the ground after falling, imply that what has bruised
them has intelligence ; — nor is there anything illogical
in such a belief. It rests on the argument from analogy.
As time goes on, and society is formed, and the idea
of science is mastered, a different aspect of the physical
universe presents itself to the mind. Since causation
implies a sequence of acts in our own case, and our
doing is always posterior, never contemporaneous or
prior, to our willing, therefore, when we witness invari-
able antecedents and consequents, we call the former
the cause of the latter, though intelligence is absent,
from the analogy of external appearances. At length
we go on to confuse causation with order ; and, because
we happen to have made a successful analysis of some
complicated assemblage of phenomena, which experience
has brought before us in the visible scene of things,
and have reduced them to a tolerable dependence on
each other, we call the ultimate points of this analysis,
and the hypothetical facts in which the whole mass of
phenomena is gathered up, by the name of causes, where-
as they are really only the formula under which those
phenomena are conveniently represented. Thus the
constitutional formula, "The king can do no wrong,^^
is not a fact, or a cause of the Constitution, but a happy
mode of bringing out its genius, of determining the
correlations of its elements, and of grouping or regulat-
ing political rules and proceedings in a particular direc-
tion and in a particular form. And in like manner,
that all the particles of matter throughout the universe
are attracted to each other with a force varying inversely
F 2
68 Notional Assents.
with the square of their respective distances, is a pro-
found idea, harmonizing the physical works of the
Creator ; but even could it be proved to be a universal
fact, and also to be the actual cause of the movements
of all bodies in the universe, still it would not be an
experience, any more than is the mythological doctrine
of the presence of innumerable spirits in those same
physical phenomena.
Of these two senses of the word " cause,'' viz. that
which brings a thing to be, and that on which a thing
under given circumstances follows, the former is that
of which our experience is the earlier and more intimate,
being suggested to us by our consciousness of willing
and doing. The latter of the two requires a discrimi-
nation and exactness of thought for its apprehension,
which implies special mental training ; else, how do we
learn to call food the cause of refreshment, but day never
the cause of night, though night follows day more surely
than refreshment follows food ? Starting, then, from ex-
perience, Iconsidera cause to be an effective will; and, by
the doctrine of causation, I mean the notion, or first prin-
ciple, that all things come of effective will ; and the re-
ception or presumption of this notion is a notional assent.
6. As to causation in the second sense (viz. an ordi-
nary succession of antecedents and consequents, or what
is called the Order of Nature), when so explained, it falls
under the doctrine of general laws; and of this I proceed
to make mention, as another first principle or notion,
derived by us from experience, and accepted with what
I have called a presumption. By natural law I mean
ihe fact that things happen uniformly according to cui-
Presumption. 69
tain circumstances, and not without them and at ran-
dom : that is, that they happen in an order ; and, as all
things in the universe are unit and individual, order
implies a certain repetition, whether of things or like
things, or of their affections and relations. Thus we
have experience, for instance, of the regularity of our
physical functions, such as the beating of the pulse and
the heaving of the breath ; of the recurring sensations
of hunger and thirst ; of the alternation of waking and
sleeping, and the succession of youth and age. In like
manner we have experience of the great recurring pheno-
mena of the heavens and earth, of day and night, sum-
mer and winter. Also, we have experience of a like
uniform succession in the instance of fire burning, water
choking, stones falling down and not up, iron moving
towards a magnet, friction followed by sparks and crack-
ling, an oar looking bent in the stream, and compressed
steam bursting its vessel. Also, by scientific analysis,
we are led to the conclusion that phenomena, which
seem very different from each other, admit of being
grouped together as modes of the operation of one hypo-
thetical law, acting under varied circumstances. For
instance, the motion of a stone falling freely, of a pro-
jectile, and of a planet, may be generalized as one and
the same property, in each of them, of the particles of
matter ; and this generalization loses its character of
hypothesis, and becomes a probability, in proportion as
we have reason for thinking on other grounds that the
particles of all matter really move and act towards each
other in one certain way in relation to space and time,
and not in half a dozen ways j that is, that nature acts
70 Notional Assents.
by uniform laws. And thus we advance to the general
notion or first principle of the sovereignty of law
throughout the universe.
There are philosophers who go farther, and teach, not
only a general, but an invariable, and inviolable, and
necessary uniformity in the action of the laws of nature,
holding that every thing is the result of some law or
laws, and that exceptions are impossible ; but I do not
see on what ground of experience or reason they take up
this position. Our experience rather is adverse to
such a doctrine, for what concrete fact or phenomenon
exactly repeats itself? Some abstract conception of
it, more perfect than the recurrent phenomenon itself,
is necessary, before we are able to say that it has
happened even twice, and the variations which accom-
pany the repetition are of the nature of exceptions.
The earth, for instance, never moves exactly in the same
orbit year by year, but is in perpetual vacillation. It
will, indeed, be replied that this arises from the inter-
action of one law with another, of which the actual
orbit is only the accidental issue, that the earth is under
the influence of a variety of attractions from cosmical
bodies, and that, if it is subject to continual aberrations
in its course, these are accounted for accurately or suflS-
ciently by the presence of those extraordinary and vari-
able attractions : — science, then, by its analytical pro-
cesses sets right the 'primA facie confusion. Of course ;
still let us not by our words imply that we are appeal-
ing to experience, when really we are only accounting,
and that by hypothesis, for the absence of experience.
The confusion is a fact, the reasoning processes are not
Presumption. 71
facts. The extraordinary attractions assigned to ac-
count for our experience of that confusion are not them-
selves experienced phenomenal facts, but more or less
probable hypotheses, argued out by means of an assumed
analogy between the cosmical bodies to which those
attractions are referred and falling bodies on the earth.
I say "assumed,^' because that analogy (in other words,
the unfailing uniformity of nature) is the very point
which has to be proved. It is true, that we can make
experiment of the law of attraction in the case of bodies
on the earth ; but, I repeat, to assume from analogy
that, as stones do fall to the earth, so Jupiter, if let
alone, would fall upon the earth and the earth upon
Jupiter, and with certain peculiarities of velocity on
either side, is to have recourse to an explanation which
is not necessarily valid, unless nature is necessarily
uniform. Nor, indeed, has it yet been proved, nor
ought it to be assumed, even that the law of velocity of
falling bodies on the earth is invariable in its operation;
for that again is only an instance of the general propo-
sition, which is the very thesis in debate. It seems
safer then to hold that the order of nature is not neces-
sary, but general in its manifestations.
But, it may be urged, if a thing happens once, it must
happen always ; for what is to hinder it ? Nay, on the
contrary, why, because one particle of matter has a cer-
tain property, should all particles have the same ? Why,
because particles have instanced the property a thousand
times, should the thousand and first instance it also ?
It is prima facie unacccJuntable that an accident should
happen twice, not to speak of its happening always. If
72 Notional Assents.
we expect a thing to happen twice, it is because we think
it is not an accident, but has a cause. What has brought
about a thing once, may bring it about twice. Wlfiai is
to hinder its happening ? rather. What is to make it
happen ? Here we are thrown back from the question
of Order to that of Causation. A law is not a cause,
but a fact ; but when we come to the question of cause,
then, as I have said, we have no experience of any cause
but Will. If, then, I must answer the question, What
is to alter the order of nature ? I reply. That which
willed it ; — That which willed it, can unwill it ; and the
invariableness of law depends on the unchangeableness
of that Will.
And here I am led to observe that, as a cause implies
a will, so order implies a purpose. Did we see flint celts,
in theirvarious receptacles all over Europe, scored always
with certain special and characteristic marks, even though
those marks had no assignable meaning or final cause
whatever, we should take that very repetition, which
indeed is the principle of order, to be a proof of intelli-
gence. The agency then which has kept up and keeps
up the general laws of nature, energizing at once in
Sirius and on the earth, and on the earth in its primary
period as well as in the nineteenth century, must be
Mind, and nothing else, and Mind at least as wide and
as enduring in its living action, as the immeasurable
ages and spaces of the universe on which that agency
has left its traces.
In these remarks I have digressed from my immediate
subject, but they have some bearing on points which will
subsequently come into discussion.
Speculation, 73
5. Speculation.
Speculation is one of those words whicli, in the ver-
nacular, have so different a sense from what they bear
in philosophy. It is commonly taken to mean a con-
jecture, or a venture on chances ; but its proper meaning
is mental sight, or the contemplation of mental opera-
tions and their results as opposed to experience, experi-
ment, or sense, analogous to its meaning in Shakspeare's
line, " Thou hast no speculation in those ejes." In this
sense I use it here.
And I use it in this sense to denote those notional
assents which are the most direct, explicit, and perfect of
their kind, viz. those which are the firm, conscious ac-
ceptance of propositions as true. This kind of assent
includes the assent to all reasoning and its conclusions,
to all general propositions, to all rules of conduct, to all
proverbs, aphorisms, sayings, and reflections on men and
society. Of course mathematical investigations and
truths are the subjects of this speculative assent. So are
legal judgments, and constitutional maxims^ as far as
they appeal to us for assent. So are the determinations of
science ; so are the principles, disputations, and doctrines
of theology. That there is a God, that He has certain
attributes, and in what sense He can be said to have
attributes, that He has done certain works, that He has
made certain revelations of Himself and of His will, and
what they are, and the multiplied bearings of the parts
of the teaching, thus developed and formed, upon each
other, all this is the subject of notional assent, and of
74 Notional Assents.
that particular department of it which I have called
Speculation. As far as these particular subjects can
be viewed in the concrete and represent experiences,
they can be received by real assent also ; but as ex-
pressed in general propositions they belong to notional
apprehension and assent.
Real Assents, 75
§ 2. Real Assents.
I HAVE in a measure anticipated the subject of Real
Assent by what I have been saying about Notional. In
comparison of the directness and force of the apprehen-
sion, which we have of an object, when our assent is to
be called real, Notional Assent and Inference seem to be
thrown back into one and the same class of intellectual
acts, though the former of the two is always an uncon-
ditional acceptance of a proposition, and the latter is an
acceptance on the condition of an acceptance of its pre-
misses. In its notional assents as well as in its inferences,
the mind contemplates its own creations instead of things;
in real, it is directed towards things, represented by the
impressions which they have left on the imagination.
These images, when assented-to, have an influence both
on the individual and on society, which mere notions
cannot exert.
I have already given various illustrations of Real
Assent ; I will follow them up here by some instances
of the change of Notional Assent into Real.
1. For instance : boys at school look like each other,
and pursue the same studies, some of them with greater
success than others ; but it will sometimes happen, that
76 Real Assents.
those who acquitted themselves but poorly in class,
when they come into the action of life, and engage in
some particular work, which they have already been
learning in its theory and with little promise of pro-
ficiency, are suddenly found to have what is called an
eye for that work — an eye for trade matters, or for en-
gineering, or a special taste for literature — which no one
expected from them at school, while they were engaged
on notions. Minds of this stamp not only know the
received rules of their profession, but enter into them,
and even anticipate them, or dispense with them, or
substitute other rules instead. And when new questions
are opened, and arguments are drawn up on one side
and the other in long array, they with a natural ease
and promptness form their views and give their decision,
as if they had no need to reason, from their clear appre-
hension of the lie and issue of the whole matter in dis-
pute, as if it were drawn out in a map before them.
These are the reformers, systematizers, inventors, in
various departments of thought, speculative and practi-
cal ; in education, in administration, in social and politi-
cal matters, in science. Such men indeed are far from
infallible ; however great their powers, they sometimes
fall into great errors, in their own special department,
while second-rate men who go by rule come to sound
and safe conclusions. Images need not be true; but I
am illustrating what vividness of apprehension is, and
what is the strength of belief consequent upon it.
2. Again : — twenty years ago, the Duke of Wellington
wrote his celebrated letter on the subject of the national
defences. His authority gave it an immediate circula-
Real Assents. jy
tion among all classes of the community; none questioned
what he said, nor as if taking his words on faith merely,
but as intellectually recognizing their truth ; yet few
could be said to see or feel .that truth. His letter lay,
so to say, upon the pure intellect of the national mind,
and nothing for a time came of it. But eleven years
afterwards, after his death, the anger of the French
colonels with us, after the attempt upon Louis Napo-
leon's life, transferred its facts to the charge of the
imagination. Then forthwith the national assent became
in various ways an operative principle, especially in its
promotion of the volunteer movement. The Duke,
having a special eye for military matters, had realized
the state of things from the first ; but it took a course
of years to impress upon the public mind an assent to
his warning deeper and more energetic than the reception
it is accustomed to give to a clever article in a news-
paper or a review.
3. And so generally : great truths, practical or ethical,
float on the surface of society, admitted by all, valued
by few, exemplifying the poet's adage, " Probitas lau-
dafcur et alget,'' until changed circumstances, accident,
or the continual pressure of their advocates, force them
upon its attention. The iniquity, for instance, of the
slave-trade ought to have been acknowledged by all men
from the first; it was acknowledged by many, but it
needed an organized agitation, with tracts and speeches
innumerable, so to affect the imagination of men as
to make their acknowledgment of that iniquitousness
operative.
In like manner, wlitn Mr. Wilber force, after succeeding
78 Real Assents.
in the slave question, urged the Duke of Wellington
to use his great influence in discountenancing duelling,
he could only get from him in answer, ''A relic of
barbarism, Mr. Wilberforce j" as if he accepted a notion
without realizing a fact : at length, the growing intelli-
gence of the community, and the shock inflicted upon it
by the tragical circumstances of a particular duel, were
fatal to that barbarism. The governing classes were
roused from their dreamy acquiescence in an abstract
truth, and recognized the duty of giving it practical
expression.
4. Let us consider, too, how differently young and old
are affected by the words of some classic author, such as
Homer or Horace. Passages, which to a boy are but
rhetorical common-places, neither better nor worse than
a hundred others which any clever writer might supply,
which he gets by heart and thinks very fine, and
imitates, as he thinks, successfully, in his own flowing
versification, at length come home to him, when long
years have passed, and he has had experience of life, and
pierce him, as if he had never before known them, with
their sad earnestness and vivid exactness. Then he
comes to understand how it is that lines, the birth of
some chance morning or evening at an Ionian festival,
or among the Sabine hills, have lasted generation after
generation, for thousands of years, with a power over
the mind, and a charm, which the current literature of
his own day, with all its obvious advantages, is utterly
unable to rival. Perhaps this is the reason of the
medieval opinion about Virgil, as if a prophet or magi-
cian J his single words and phrases, his pathetic half
Real Assents. 79
lines, giving utterance, as the voice of Nature herself,
to that pain and weariness, yet hope of better things,
which is the experience of her children in every time.
5. And what the experience of the world effects for
the illustration of classical authors, that office the reli-
gious sense, carefully cultivated, fulfils towards Holy
Scripture. To the devout and spiritual, the Divine Word
speaks of things, not merely of notions. And, again, to
the disconsolate, the tempted, the perplexed, the suffer-
ing, there comes, by means of their very trials, an
enlargement of thought, which enables them to see in it
what they never saw before. Henceforth there is to
them a reality in its teachings, which they recognize as
an argument, and the best of arguments, for its divine
origin. Hence the practice of meditation on the Sacred
Text ; so highly thought of by Catholics. Reading, as
we do, the Gospels from our youth up, we are in danger
of becoming so familiar with them as to be dead to their
force, and to view them as a mere history. The purpose,
then, of meditation is to realize them ; to make the facts
which they relate stand out before our minds as objects,
such as may be appropriated by a faith as living as the
imagination which apprehends them.
It is obvious to refer to the unworthy use made of the
more solemn parts of the sacred volume by the mere
popular preacher. His very mode of reading, whether
warnings or prayers, is as if he thought them to be
little more than fine writing, poetical in sense, musical
in sound, and worthy of inspiration. The most awful
truths are to him but sublime or beautiful conceptions,
^ and are adduced and used by him, in season and out of
8o Real Assents.
season, for his own purposes, for embellishing his style
or rounding his periods. But let his heart at length be
ploughed by some keen grief or deep anxiety, and Scrip-
ture is a new book to him. This is the change which so
often takes place in what is called religious conversion,
and it is a change so far simply for the better, by what-
ever infirmity or error it is in the particular case
accompanied. And it is strikingly suggested to us, to
take a saintly example, in the confession of the patriarch
Job, when he contrasts his apprehension of the Almighty
before and after his afflictions. He says he had indeed
a true apprehension of the Divine Attributes before
as well as after; but with the trial came a great
change in the character of that apprehension : — " With
the hearing of the ear,'' he says, " I have heard Thee,
but now mine eye seeth Thee j therefore I reprehend
myself, and do penance in dust and ashes."
Let these instances suffice of real Assent in its relation
to Notional; they lead me to make three remarks in
further illustration of its character.
1 . The fact of the distinctness of the images, which are
required for real assent, is no warrant for the existence
of the objects which those images represent. A propo-
sition, be it ever so keenly apprehended, may be true or
may be false. If we simply put aside all inferential
information, such as is derived from testimony, from
general belief, from the concurrence of the senses, from
common sense, or otherwise, we have no right to con-
sider that we have apprehended a truth, merely because
of the strength of our mental impression of it. Hence
Real Assents. 8 1
the proverb, " Fronti nulla fides/' An image, witli the
characters of perfect veracity and faithfulness, may be
ever so distinct and eloquent an object presented before
the mind (or, as it is sometimes called, an " objectum
internum," or a "subject-object") ; but, nevertheless,
there may be no external reality in the case, correspond-
ing to it, in spite of its impressiveness. One of the
most remarkable instances of this fallacious impressive-
ness is the illusion which possesses the nlinds of able
men, those especially who are exercised in physical in-,
vestigations, in favour of the inviolability of the laws of
nature. Philosophers of the school of Hume discard the
very supposition of miracles, and scornfully refuse to
hear evidence in their behalf in given instances, from
their intimate experience of physical order and of the
ever-recurring connexion of antecedent and consequent.
Their imagination usurps the functions of reason ; and
they cannot bring themselves even to entertain as a hypo-
thesis (and this is all that they are asked to do) a thought
contrary to that vivid impression of which they are the
victims, that the uniformity of nature, which they witness
hour by hour, is equivalent to a necessary, inviolable law.
Yet it is plain, and I shall take it for granted here,
that when I assent to a proposition, I ought to have
some more legitimate reason for doing so, than the
brilliancy of the image of which that proposition is
the expression. That I have no experience of a thing
happening except in one way, is a cause of the intensity
of my assent, if I assent, but not a reason for my assent-
ing. In saying this, I am not disposed to deny the pre-
sence in some men of an idiosyncratic sagacity, which
a
82 Real Assents,
really and rightly sees reasons in impressions which
common men cannot see, and is secured from the peril
of confusing truth with make-belief; but this is genius,
and beyond rule. I grant too, of course, that acciden-
tally impressiveness does in matter of fact, as in the
instance which I have been giving, constitute the motive
principle of belief ; for the mind is ever exposed to the
danger of being carried away by the liveliness of its
conceptions, to the sacrifice of good sense and conscien-
tious caution, and the greater and the more rare are its
gifts, the greater is the risk of swerving from the line of
reason and duty ; but here I am not speaking of trans-
gressions of rule any more than of exceptions to it, but
of the normal constitution of our minds, and of the
natural and rightful eflfect of acts of the imagination
upon us, and this is, not to create assent, but to
intensify it.
2. Next, Assent, however strong, and accorded to
images however vivid, is not therefore necessarily prac-
tical. Strictly speaking, it is not imagination that
causes action ; but hope and fear, likes and dislikes,
appetite, passion, affection, the stirrings of selfishness
and self-love. What imagination does for us is to find
a means of stimulating those motive powers ; and it
does so by providing a supply of objects strong enough
to stimulate them. The thought of honour, glory, duty,
self-aggrandisement, gain, or on the other hand of
Divine Goodness, future reward, eternal life, perse-
veringly dwelt upon, leads us along a course of action
corresponding to itself, but only in case there be that in
our minds which is congenial to it. However, when
Real Assents. 83
there is that preparation of mind, the thought does lead
to the act. Hence it is that the fact of a proposition
being accepted with a real assent is accidentally an
earnest of that proposition being carried out in conduct,
and the imagination may be said in some sense to be of
a practical nature, inasmuch as it leads to practice indi-
rectly by the action of its object upon the affections.
3. There is a third remark suggested by the view
which I have been taking of real assents, viz. that they
are of a personal character, each individual having his
own, and being known by them. It is otherwise with
notions ; notional apprehension is in itself an ordinary
act of our common nature. All of us bave the power of
abstraction, and can be taught either to make or to enter
into the same abstractions ; and thus to co-operate in
the establishment of a common measure between mind
and mind. And, though for one and all of us to assent
to the notions which we thus apprehend in common, is
a further step, as requiring the adoption of a common
stand-point of principle and judgment, yet this too
depends in good measure on certain logical processes of
thought, with which we are all familiar, and on facts
which we all take for granted. But we cannot make
sure, for ourselves or others, of real apprehension and
assent, because we have to secure first the images which
are their objects, and these are often peculiar and special.
They depend on personal experience; and the experience
of one man is not the experience of another. Real
assent, then, as the experience which it presupposes, is
proper to the individual, and, as such, thwarts rather
than promotes the intercourse of man with. man. It
G 1
84 Real Assents.
shuts itself up, as it were, in its own home, or at least it
is its own witness and its own standard ; and, as in the
instances above given, it cannot be reckoned on, antici-
pated, accounted for, inasmuch as it is the accident of
this man or that.
I call the characteristics of an individual accidents, in
spite of the universal reign of law, because they are
severally the co-incidents of many laws, and there are
no laws as yet discovered of such coincidence. A man
who is run over in the street and killed, in one sense
suflFers according to rule or law; he was crossing, he was
short-sighted or pre-occupied in mind, or he was looking
another way; he was deaf, lame, or flurried; and the cab »
came up at a great pace. If all this was so, it was by a
necessity that he was run over; it would have been a
miracle if he had escaped. So far is clear ; but what is
not clear is how all these various conditions met together
in the particular case, how it was that a man, short-
sighted, hard of hearing, deficient in presence of mind,
happened to get in the way of a cab hurrying along to
catch a train. This concrete fact does not come under
any law of sudden deaths, but, like the earth's yearly
path which I spoke of above, is the accident of the
individual.
It does not meet the case to refer to the law of
averages, for such laws deal with percentages, not with
individuals, and it is about individuals that I am speak-
ing. That this particular man out of the three millions
congregated in the metropolis, was to have the expe-
rience of this catastrophe, and to be the select victim to
appease that law of averages, no statistical tables could
Real Assents. 85
foretell, even though they could determine that it was
in the fates that in that week or day some four persons
in the length and breadth of London should be run over.
And in Hke manner that this or that person should have
the particular experiences necessary for real assent on
any point, that the Deist should become a Theist, the
Erastian a Catholic, the Protectionist a Free-trader, the
Conservative a Legitimist, the high Tory an out-and-out
Democrat, are facts, each of which may be the result of
a multitude of coincidences in one and the same indi-
vidual, coincidences which we have no means of deter-
mining, and which, therefore, we may call accidents.
For—
" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends.
Bough hew them how we will."
Such accidents are the characteristics of persons, as
diferenticB and properties are the characteristics of
species or natures.
That a man dies when deprived of air, is not an
accident of his person, but a law of his nature ; that he
cannot live without quinine or opium, or out of the
climate of Madeira, is his own peculiarity. If all men
everywhere usually had the yellow fever once in their
lives, we should call it (speaking according to our
knowledge) a law of the human constitution; if the
inhabitants of a particular country commonly had it,
we should call it a law of the climate ; if a healthy man
has a fever in a healthy place, in a healthy season, we
call it an accident, though it be reducible to the coin-
cidence of laws, because there is no known law of their
coincidence. To be rational, to have speech, to pass
86 Real Assents.
through successive changes of mind and body from
infancy to death, belong to man's nature ; to have a
particular history, to be married or single, to have
children or to be childless, to live a given number of
years, to have a certain constitution, moral tempera-
ment, intellectual outfit, mental formation, these and
the like, taken all together, are the accidents which
make up our notion of a man's person, and are the
ground-work or condition of his particular experiences.
Moreover, various of the experiences which befall
this man may be the same as those which befall that,
although those experiences result each from the com-
bination of its own accidents, and are ultimately trace-
able each to its own special condition or history. That
is, images which are possessed in common, with their
apprehensions and assents, may nevertheless be per-
sonal characteristics. If two or three hundred men are
to be found, who cannot live out of Madeira, that
inability would still be an accident and a peculiarity of
each of them. Even if in each case it implied delicacy of
lungs, still that delicacy is a vague notion, comprehend-
ing under it a great variety of cases in detail. If " five
hundred brethren at once '^ saw our risen Lord, that
common experience would not be a law, but a personal
accident which was the prerogative of each. And so
again in this day the belief of so many thousands in
His Divinity, is not therefore notional, because it is
common, but may be a real and personal belief, being
produced in different individual minds by various ex-
periences and disposing causes, variously combined;
such as a warm or strong imagination, great sensibility,
Real Assents. 87
compunction and horror at sin, frequenting the Mass
and other rites of the Church, meditating on the con-
tents of the Gospels, familiarity with hymns and re-
ligious poems, dwelling on the Evidences, parental
example and instruction, religious friends, strange pro-
vidences, powerful preaching. In each case the image
in the mind, with the experiences out of which it is
formed, would be a personal result ; and, though the
same in all, would in each case be so idiosyncratic in
its circumstances, that it would stand by itself, a special
formation, unconnected with any law ; though at the
same time it would necessarily be a principle of sym-
pathy and a bond of intercourse between those whose
minds had been thus variously wrought into a common
assent, far stronger than could follow upon any multi-
tude of mere notions which they unanimously held.
And even when that assent is not the result of con-
current causes, if such a case is possible, biit has one
single origin, as the study of Scripture, careful teach-
ing, or a religious temper, still its presence argues a
special history, and a personal formation, which an
abstraction does not. For an abstraction can be made
at will, and may be the work of a moment ; but the
moral experiences which perpetuate themselves in
images, must be sought after in order to be found, and
encouraged and cultivated in order to be appropriated.
I have now said all that occurs to me on the subject
of Eeal Assents, perhaps not without some risk of
subtlety and minuteness. They are sometimes called
beliefs, convictions, certitudes ; and, as given to moral
88 ■ Real Assents.
objects, they are perhaps as rare as they are powerful.
Till we have them, in spite of a full apprehension and
assent in the field of notions, we have no intellectual
moorings, and are at the mercy of impulses, fancies,
and wandering lights, whether as regards personal
conduct, social and political action, or religion. These
beliefs, be they true or false in the particular case, form
the mind out of which they grow, and impart to it a
seriousness and manliness which inspires in other minds
a confidence in its views, and is one secret of persua-
siveness and influence in the public stage of the world.
They create, as the case may be, heroes and saints,
great leaders, statesmen, preachers, and reformers, the
pioneers of discovery in science, visionaries, fanatics,
knight-errants, demagogues, and adventurers. They
have given to the world men of one idea, of immense
energy, of adamantine will, of revolutionary power.
They kindle sympathies between man and man, and
knit together the innumerable units which constitute
a i-ace and a nation. They become the principle of its
political existence ; they impart to it homogeneity of
thought and fellowship of purpose. They have given
form to the medieval theocracy and to the Mahometan
superstition ; they are now the life both of " Holy
Russia,^* and of that freedom of speech and action
which is the special boast of Englishmen.
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 89
§ 3. Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
It appears from what has been said, that, though Real
Assent is not intrinsically operative, it accidentally and
indirectly affects practice. It is in itself an intellectual
act, of which the object is presented to it by the imagi-
nation ; and though the pure intellect does not lead to
action, nor the imagination either, yet the imagination
has the means, which pure intellect has not, of stimu-
lating those powers of the mind from which action
proceeds. Real Assent then, or Belief, as it may be
called, viewed in itself, that is, simply as Assent, does
not lead to action ; but the images in which it lives,
representing as they do the concrete, have the power of
the concrete upon the affections and passions, and by
means of these indirectly become operative. Still this
practical influence is not invariable, nor to be relied on ;
for given images may have no tendency to affect given
minds, or to excite them to action. Thus, a philosopher
or a poet may vividly realize the brilliant rewards of
military genius or of eloquence, without wishing either
to be a commander or an orator. However, on the
whole, broadly contrasting Belief with Notional Assent
and with Inference, we shall not, with this explanation,
90 Notional and Real Assents Contrasted,
be very vn-ong in pronouncing that acts of Notional
Assent and of Inference do not affect our conduct, and
acts of Belief, that is, of Real Assent, do (not necessarily,
but do) affect it.
I have scarcely spoken of Inference since my Intro-
ductory Chapter, though I intend, before I conclude, to
consider it fully ; but I have said enough to admit of
my introducing it here in contrast with Real Assent or
Belief, and that contrast is necessary in order to com-
plete what I have been saying about the latter. Let
me then, for the sake of the latter, be allowed here to
repeat, that, while Assent, or Belief, presupposes some
apprehension of the things believed, Inference requires
no apprehension of the things inferred ; that in conse-
quence. Inference is necessarily concerned with surfaces
and aspects ; that it begins with itself, and ends with
itself ; that it does not reach as far as facts ; that it is
employed upon formulas ; that, as far as it takes real
objects of whatever kind into account, such as motives
and actions, character and conduct, art, science, taste,
morals, religion, it deals with them, not as they are, but
simply in its own line, as materials of argument or in-
quiry, that they are to it nothing more than major and
minor premisses and conclusions. Belief, on the other
hand, being concerned with things concrete, not abstract,
which variously excite the mind from their moral and
imaginative properties, has for its objects, not only
directly what is true, but inclusively what is beautiful,
useful, admirable, heroic; objects which kindle devotion,
rouse the passions, and attach the affections ; and thus it
leads the way to actions of every kind, to the establish-
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 91
ment of principles, and the formation of character, and
is thus again intimately connected with what is indi-
vidual and personal.
1 insisted on this marked distinction between Beliefs
on the one hand, and Notional Assents and Inferences
on the other, many years ago in words which it will be
to my purpose to use now.* I quote them, because, over
and above their appositeness in this place, they present
the doctrine on which I have been insisting, from a
second point of view, and with a freshness and force
which I cannot now command, and, moreover, (though
they are my own, nevertheless, from the length of time
which has elapsed since their publication), almost with
the cogency of an independent testimony.
They occur in a protest which I had occasion to write
in February, 1841, against a dangerous doctrine main-
tained, as I considered, by two very eminent men of
that day, now no more — Lord Brougham and Sir Robert
Peel. That doctrine was to the eflect that the claims
of religion could be secured and sustained in the mass of
men, and in particular in the lower classes of society, by
acquaintance with literature and physical science, and
through the instrumentality of Mechanics' Institutes
and Reading Rooms, to the serious disparagement, as it
seemed to me, of direct Christian instruction. In the
course of my remarks is found the passage which I shall
here quote, and which, with whatever differences in
terminology, and hardihood of assertion, befitting the
2 Vide " Discussions and Arguments on Varioos Subjects," art. 4.
92 Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
circumstances of its publication, nay, as far as words go,
inaccuracy of theological statement, suitably illustrates
the subject here under discussion. It runs thus : —
*' People say to me, that it is but a dream to suppose
that Christianity should regain the organic power in
human society which once it possessed. I cannot help
that ; I never said it could. I am not a politician ; I
am proposing no measures, but exposing a fallacy and
resisting a pretence. Let Benthamism reign, if men
have no aspirations ; but do not tell them to be romantic
and then solace them with ' glory :' do not attempt by
philosophy what once was done by religion. The ascen-
dency of faith may be impracticable, but the reign of
knowledge is incomprehensible. The problem for states-
men of this age is how to educate the masses, and litera-
ture and science cannot give the solution. . . .
" Science gives us the grounds or premisses from
which religious truths are to be inferred ; but it does not
set about inferring them, much less does it reach the
inference — that is not its province. It brings before us
phenomena, and it leaves us, if we will, to call them
works of design, wisdom, or benevolence ; and further
still, if we will, to proceed to confess an Intelligent
Creator. We have to take its facts, and to give them a
meaning, and to draw our own conclusions from them.
First comes knowledge, then a view, then reasoning,
and then belief. This is why science has so little of a
religious tendency ; deductions have no power of per-
suasion. The heart is commonly reached, not through
the reason, but through the imagination, by means of
direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events.
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. .93
by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices
melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a
man will live and die upon a dogma : no man will be a
martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion ;
it is not a thing whicb is, but which we are * quite sure
about ;' and it has often been observed, that we never say
we are sure and certain without implying that we doubt.
To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not
be. No one, I say, will die for his own calculations : he
dies for .realities. This is why a literary religion is so
little to be depended upon ; it looks well in fair weather ;
but its doctrines are opinions, and, when called to sufier
for them, it slips them between its folios, or burns them
at its hearth. And this again is the secret of the distrust
and raillery with which moralists have been so commonly
visited. They say and do not. Why ? Because they
are contemplating the fitness of things, and they live by
the square, when they should be realizing their high
maxims in the concrete. Now Sir Robert Peel thinks
better of natural history, chemistry, and astronomy than
of such ethics ; but these too, what are they more than
divinity in posse ? He protests against ' controversial
di\'inity :' is inferential much better ?
" I have no confidence, then, in philosophers who can-
not help being religious, and are Christians by implica-
tion. They sit at home, and reach forward to distances
which astonish us ; but they hit without grasping, and
are sometimes as confident about shadows as about reali-
ties. They have worked out by a calculation the lie of a
country which they never saw, and mapped it by means
of a gazetteer ; and, like blind men, though they can
94 • Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
put a stranger on his way, they cannot walk straight
themselves, and do not feel it quite their business to
walk at all.
" Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude ;
first shoot round corners, and you may not despair of
converting by a syllogism. Tell men to gain notions of
a Creator from His works, and, if they were to set about
it (which nobody does) they would be jaded and wearied
by the labyrinth they were tracing. Their minds would
be gorged and surfeited by the logical operation. Logi-
cisins are more set upon concluding rightly, than on right
conclusions. They cannot see the end for the process.
Few men have that power of mind which may hold fast
and firmly a variety of thoughts. We ridicule 'men of
one idea/ but a great many of us are born to be such,
and we should be happier if we knew it. To most men
argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful,
and considerably less impressive. After all, man is not a
reasoning animal ; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating,
acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and
precise. It is very well to freshen our impressions and
convictions from physics, but to create them we must go
elsewhere. Sir Kobert Peel ' never can think it possible
that a mind can be so constituted, that, after being
familiarized with the wonderful discoveries which have
been made in every part of experimental science, it can
retire from such contemplations without more enlarged
conceptions of God^s providence, and a higher reverence
for His Name.' If he speaks of religious mind, he perpe-
trates a truism ; if of irreligious, he insinuates a paradox.
" Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences ;
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 95
we shall never have done beginning, if we determine
to begin with proof. We shall ever be laying our
foundations ; we shall turn theology into evidences,
and divines into textuaries. We shall never get at
our first principles. Eesolve to believe nothing, and
you must prove your proofs and analyze your ele-
ments, sinking farther and farther, and finding *in
the lowest depth a lower deep,' till you come to the
broad bosom of scepticism, I would rather be bound
to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Chris-
tianity is true, than to demonstrate a moral govern-
once from the physical world. Life is for action. If
we insist on proofs for every thing, we shall never
come to action: to act you must assume, and that
assumption is faith.
" Let no one suppose, that in saying this I am main-
taining that all proofs are equally difficult, and all propo-
sitions equally debatable. Some assumptions are greater
than others, and some doctrines involve postulates larger
than others, and more numerous, I only say, that im-
pressions lead to action, and that reasonings lead from it.
Knowledge of premisses, and inferences upon them, —
this is not to live. It is very well as a matter of liberal
curiosity and of philosophy to analyze our modes of
thought : but let this come second, and when there is
leisure for it, and then our examinations will in many
ways even be subservient to action. But if we com-
mence with scientific knowledge and argumentative
proof, or lay any great stress upon it as the basis of
personal Christianity, or attempt to make man moral
and religious by libraries and museums, let us in con-
96 Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
sistency take chemists for our cooks, and mineralogists
for our masons.
'' Now I wish to state all this as matter of fact, to
be judged by the candid testimony of any persons
whatever. Why we are so constituted that faith,
not knowledge or argument, is our principle of action,
is a question with which I have nothing to do; but
I think it is a fact, and, if it be such, we must
resign ourselves to it as best we may, unless we
take refuge in the intolerable paradox, that the mass
of men are created for nothing, and are meant to leave
life as they entered it.
"So well has this practically been understood in all
ages of the world, that no religion yet has been a
religion of physics or of philosophy. It has ever been
synonymous with revelation. It never has been a
deduction from what we know; it has ever been an
assertion of what we are to believe. It has never lived
in a conclusion ; it has ever been a message, a history,
or a vision. No legislator or priest ever dreamed of
educating our moral nature by science or by argu-
ment. There is no difference here between true
religion and pretended. Moses was instructed not
to reason from the creation, but to work miracles.
Christianity is a history supernatural, and almost
scenic : it tells us what its Author is, by telling us
what He has done. . . .
" Lord Brougham himself has recognized the force
of this principle. He has not left his philosophical
religion to argument ; he has committed it to the keep-
ing of the imagination. Why should he depict a great
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 97
republic of letters, and an intellectual pantheon, except
that he feels that instances and patterns, not logical
reasonings, are the living conclusions which alone
have a hold over the affections or can form the
character ? '^
K
CHAPTER V.
APPEEHENSION AND ASSENT IN THE MATTER OF
RELIGION.
We are now able to determine what a dogma of faith is,
and what it is to believe it. A dogma is a proposition;
it stands for a notion or for a thing ; and to believe it is
to give the assent of the mind to it, as it st ands for the
one or for the other. To give a real assent to it is an
act of religion ; to give a notional, is a theological act.
It is discerned, rested in, and appropriated as a reality,
by the religious imagination ; it is held as a truth, by
the theological intellect.
Not as if there were in fact, or could be, any line of
demarcation or party-wall between these two modes of
assent, the religious and the theological. As intellect
is common to all men as well as imagination, every
religious man is to a certain extent a theologian, and no
theology can start or thrive without the initiative and
abiding presence of religion. As in matters of this
world, sense, sensation, instinct, intuition, supply us
with facts, and the intellect uses them ; so, as regards
our relations with the Supreme Being, we get our
facts from the witness, first of nature, then of revelation.
AppreJiension and Assent in Religion, 99
and our doctrines, in which they issue, through the exer-
cise of abstraction and inference. This is obvious ; but
it does not interfere with holding that there is a theo-
logical habit of mind, and a religious, each distinct from
each, religion using theology, and theology using reli-
gion. This being understood, I propose to consider the
dogmas of the Being of a God, and of the Divine Trinity
in Unity, in their relation to assent, both notional and
real, and principally to real assent; — however, I have not
yet finished all I have to say by way of introduction.
Now first, my subject is assent, and not inference.
I am not proposing to set forth the arguments which
issue in the belief of these doctrines, but to investigate
what it is to believe in them, what the mind does, what
it contemplates, when it makes an act of faith. It is
true that the same elementary facts which create an
object for an assent, also furnish matter for an inference:
and in showing what we believe, I shall unavoidably be
in a measure showing why we believe ; but this is the
very reason that makes it necessary for me at the outset
to insist on the real distinction between these two con-
curring and coincident courses of thought, and to pre-
mise by way of caution, lest I should be misunderstood,
that I am not considering the question that there is a
God, but rather what God is.
And secondly, I mean by belief, not precisely faith,
because faith, in its theological sense, includes a belief,
not only in the thing behoved, but also in the gi'ound of
believing ; that is, not only belief in certain doctrines,
but belief in them expressly because God has revealed
them; but here I am engaged only with what is called
H 2
100 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
the material object of faith, — with the thing believed,
not with the formal. The Almighty witnesses to Himself
in Revelation; we believe that He is One and that He is
Three, because He says so. We believe also what He
tells us about His Attributes, His providences and dis-
pensations. His determinations and acts, what He has
done and what He will do. And if all this is too much
for us, whether to bring at one time before our minds
from its variety, or even to apprehend at all or enunciate
from our narrowness of intellect or want of learning,
then at least we believe in globa all that He has revealed
to us about Himself, and that, because He has revealed
it. However, this *' because He says it" does not enter
into the scope of the present inquiry, but only the truths
themselves, and these particular truths, " He is One,"
" He is Three ;" and of these two, both of which are
in Revelation, I shall consider "He is One," not as a
revealed truth, but as, what it is also, a natural truth,
the foundation of all religion. And with it I begin.
Belief in One God. loi
§ 1. Belief in One God.
There is one God, such and sucli in Nature and
Attributes.
I say " such and such/^ for, unless I explain what I
mean by " one God," I use words which may mean any
thing or nothing. I may mean a mere anima mundi ;
or an initial principle which once was in action and now
is not ; or collective humanity. I speak then of the God
of the Theist and of the Christian : a God who is
numerically One, who is Personal; the Author, Sus-
tainer, and Finisher of all things, the life of Law and
Order, the Moral Governor ; One who is Supreme and
Sole; like Himself, unlike all things besides Himself
which all are but His creatures ; distinct from, inde-
pendent of them all ; One who is self- existing, absolutely
infinite, who has ever been and ever will be, to whom
nothing is past or future; who is all perfection, and the
fulness and archetype of every possible excellence, the
Truth Itself, Wisdom, Love, Justice, Holiness ; One who
is All-powerful, All-knowing, Omnipresent, Incompre-
hensible. These are some of the distinctive prerogatives
which I ascribe unconditionally and unreservedly to the
great Being whom I call God.
I02 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
This being what Theists mean when they speak of
God, their assent to this truth admits without difficulty
of being what I have called a notional assent. It is an
assent following upon acts of inference, and other purely
intellectual exercises ; and it is an assent to a large de-
velopment of predicates, correlative to each other, or at
least intimately connected together, drawn out as if on
paper, as we might map a country which we had never
seen, or construct mathematical tables, or master the
methods of discovery of Newton or Davy, without being
geographers, mathematicians, or chemists ourselves.
So far is clear ; but the question follows. Can I attain
to any more vivid assent to the Being of a God, than
that which is given merely to notions of the intellect ?
Can I enter with a personal knowledge into the circle
of truths which make up that great thought. Can I
rise to what I have called an imaginative apprehension
of it ? Can I believe as if I saw ? Since such a high
assent requires a present experience or memory of the
fact, at first sight it would seem as if the answer must
be in the negative ; for how can I assent as if I saw,
unless I have seen? but no one in this life can see God.
Yet I conceive a real assent is possible, and I proceed
to show how.
When it is said that we cannot see God, this is unde-
niable ; but still in what sense have we a discernment of
His creatures, of the individual beings which surround
us ? The evidence which we have of their presence lies
in the phenomena which address our senses, and our
warrant for taking these for evidence is our instinctive
certitude that they are evidence. By the law of our
Belief in One God. 103
nature we associate those sensible phenomena or impres-
sions with certain units, individuals, substances, whatever
they are to be called, which are outside and out of the reach
of sense, and we picture them to ourselves in those phe-
nomena. The phenomena are as if pictures ; but at the
same time they give us no exact measure or character of
the unknown things beyond them ; — for who will say
there is any uniformity between the impressions which
two of us would respectively have of some third thing,
supposing one of us had only the sense of touch, and the
other only the sense of hearing ? Therefore, when we
speak of our having a picture of the things which are
perceived through the senses, we mean a certain repre-
sentation, true as far as it goes, but not adequate.
And so of those intellectual and moral objects which
are brought home to us through our senses : — that they
exist, we know by instinct ; that they are such and such,
we apprehend from the impressions which they leave
upon our minds. Thus the life and writings of Cicero
or Dr. Johnson, of St. Jerome or St. Chrysostom, leave
upon us certain impressions of the intellectual and moral
character of each of them, sui generis, and unmistakable.
We take up a passage of Chrysostom or a passage of
Jerome ; there is no possibility of confusing the one with
the other ; in each case we see the man in his language.
And so of any great man whom we may have known :
that he is not a mere impression on our senses, but a real
being, we know by instinct ; that he is such and such,
we know by the matter or quality of that impression.
Now certainly the thought of God, as Theists enter-
tain it, is not gained by an instinctive association of His
104 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
presence with any sensible phenomena ; but the office
which the senses directly fulfil as regards creation that
devolves indirectly on certain of our mental phenomena
as regards the Creator. Those phenomena are found
in the sense of moral obligation. As from a multitude
of instinctive perceptions, acting in particular instances,
of something beyond the senses, we generalize the notion
of an external world, and then picture that world in and
according to those particular phenomena from which we
started, so from the perceptive power which identifies the
intimations of conscience with the reverberations or
echoes (so to say) of an external admonition, we proceed
on to the notion of a Supreme Ruler and Judge, and
then again we image Him and His attributes in those
recurring intimations, out of which, as mental pheno-
mena, our recognition of His existence was originally
gained. And, if the impressions which His creatures
make on us through our senses oblige us to regard those
creatures as sui generis respectively, it is not wonderful
that the notices, which He indirectly gives us through
our conscience, of His own nature are such as to make us
understand that He is like Himself and like nothing
else.
I have already said I am not proposing here to prove
the Being of a God ; yet I have found it impossible to
avoid saying where I look for the proof of it. For I am
looking for that proof in the same quarter as that from
which I would commence a proof of His attributes and
character, — by the same means as those by which I show
how we apprehend Him, not merely as a notion, but as
a reality. The last indeed of these three investigations
Belief in One God. 105
alone concerns me here, but I cannot altogether exclude
the two former from my consideration. However, I
repeat, what I am directly aiming at, is to explain how
we gain an image of God and give a real assent to the
proposition that He exists. And next, in order to do
this, of course I must start from some first principle -, —
and that first principle, which I assume and shall not
attempt to prove, is that which I should also use as a
foundation in those other two inquiries, viz. that we have
by nature a conscience.
I assume, then, that Conscience has a legitimate place
among our mental acts ; as really so, as the action of
memory, of reasoning, of imagination, or as the sense of
the beautiful; that, as there are objects which, when
presented to the mind, cause it to feel grief, regret, joy,
or desire, so there are things which excite in us approba-
tion or blame, and which we in consequence call right or
wrong; and which, experienced in ourselves, kindle in us
that specific sense of pleasure or pain, which goes by the
name of a good or bad conscience. This being taken for
granted, I shall attempt to show that in this special
feeling, which follows on the commission of what we call
right or wrong, lie the materials for the real apprehen-
sion of a Divine Sovereign and Judge.
The feeliug of conscience (being, I repeat, a certain
keen sensibility, pleasant or painful, — self-approval and
hope, or compunction and fear, — attendant on certain of
our actions, which in consequence we call right or
wrong) is twofold : — it is a moral sense, and a sense of
duty; a judgment of the reason and a magisterial
dictate. Of course its act is indivisible ; still it has these
1 06 Apprehension and Assent in Religio7i.
two aspects, distinct from each other, and admitting of
a separate consideration. Though I lost my sense of the
obligation which I lie under to abstain from acts of
dishonesty, I should not in consequence lose my sense
that such actions were an outrage offered to my moral
nature. Again ; though I lost my sense of their moral
deformity, I should not therefore lose my sense that they
were forbidden to me. Thus conscience has both a
critical and a judicial office, and though its promptings,
in the breasts of the millions of human beings to whom
it is given, are not in all cases correct, that does not
necessarily interfere with the force of its testimony and
of its sanction : its testimony that there is a right and a
wrong, and its sanction to that testimony conveyed in
the feelings which attend on right or wrong conduct.
Here I have to speak of conscience in the latter point of
view, not as supplying us, by means of its various acts,
with the elements of morals, such as may be developed
by the intellect into an ethical code, but simply as the
dictate of an authoritative monitor bearing upon the
details of conduct as they come before us, and complete
in its several acts, one by one.
Let us then thus consider conscience, not as a rule of
right conduct, but as a sanction of right conduct. This
is its primary and most authoritative aspect ; it is the
ordinary sense of the word. Half the world would be
puzzled to know what was meant by the moral sense ;
but every one knows what is meant by a good or bad
conscience. Conscience is ever forcing on us by threats
and by promises that we must follow the right and
avoid the wrong; so far it is one and the same in the
Belief in One God. 107
mind of every one, whatever be its particular errors in
particular minds as to the acts whicli it orders to be done
or to be avoided ; and in this respect it corresponds to
our perception of the beautiful and deformed. As we
have naturally a sense of the beautiful and graceful in
nature and art, though tastes proverbially differ, so we
have a sense of duty and obligation, whether we all
associate it with the same certain actions in particidar
or not. Here, however. Taste and Conscience part
company : for the sense of beautifulness, as indeed the
Moral Sense, has no special relations to persons, but
contemplates objects in themselves ; conscience, on the
other hand, is concerned with persons primarily, and
with actions mainly as viewed in their doers, or rather
with self alone and one^s own actions, and with others
only indirectly and as if in association with self. And
further, taste is its own evidence, appealing to nothing
beyond its own sense of the beautiful or the ugly, and
enjoying the specimens of the beautiful simply for their
own sake ; but conscience does not repose on itself, but
vaguely reaches forward to something beyond self, and
dimly discerns a sanction higher than self for its
decisions, as is evidenced in that keen sense of obligation
and responsibility which informs them. And hence it
is that we are accustomed to speak of conscience as a
voice, — a term which we should never think of applying
to the sense of the beautiful ; and moreover a voice, or
the echo of a voice, imperative and constraining, like no
other dictate in the whole of our experience.
And again, in consequence of this prerogative of
dictating and commanding, which is of its essence.
io8 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
Conscience has an intimate bearing on our affections and
emotions^ leading us to reverence and awe, hope and
fear, especially fear, a feeling which is foreign for the
most part, not only to Taste, but even to the Moral
Sense, except in consequence of accidental associations.
No fear is felt by any one who recognizes that his
conduct has not been beautiful, though he may be
mortified at himself, if perhaps he has thereby forfeited
some advantage ; but, if he has been betrayed into any
kind of immorality, he has a lively sense of responsibility
and guilt, though the act be no offence against society,
— of distress and apprehension, even though it may be
of present service to him, — of compunction and regret,
though in itself it be most pleasurable, — of confusion of
face, though it may have no witnesses. These various
perturbations of mind, which are characteristic of a bad
conscience, and may be very considerable, — self-reproach,
poignant shame, haunting remorse, chill dismay at the
prospect of the future, — and their contraries, when the
conscience is good, as real though less forcible, self-
approval, inward peace, lightness of heart, and the like,
— these emotions constitute a specific difference between
conscience and our other intellectual senses, — common
sense, good sense, sense of expedience, taste, sense of
honour, and the like, — as indeed they would also
constitute between conscience and the moral sense,
supposing these two were not aspects of one and the
same feeling, exercised upon one and the same subject-
matter.
So much for the characteristic phenomena, which
conscience presents, nor is it diSicult to determine
Belief in One God. 109
what they imply. I refer once more to our sense of
the beautiful. This sense is attended by an intellec-
tual enjoyment, and is free from whatever is of the
nature of -emotion, except in one case, viz. when it is
excited by personal objects ; then it is that the tranquil
feeling of admiration is exchanged for the excitement
of affection and passion. Conscience too, considered
as a moral sense, an intellectual sentiment, is a sense
of admiration and disgust, of approbation and blame :
but it is something more than a moral sense ; it is
always, what the sense of the beautiful is only in cer-
tain cases; it is always emotional. No wonder then
that it always implies what that sense only sometimes
implies j that it always involves the recognition of a
living object, towards which it is directed. Inanimate
things cannot stir our affections ; these are correlative
with persons. If, as is the case, we feel responsibility,
are ashamed, are frightened, at transgressing the voice
of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom
we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed,
whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong,
we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which
overwhelms us on hurting a mother ; if, on doing right,
we enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the same
soothing, satisfactory delight which follows on our
receiving praise from a father, we certainly have within
us the image of some person, to whom our love and
veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness,
for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our
pleadings, in whose anger we are troubled and waste
away. These feelings in us are such as require for
1 10 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
their exciting cause an intelligent being : we are not
affectionate towards a stone, nor do we feel shame
before a horse or a dog ; we have no remorse or com-
punction on breaking mere human law : yet, so it is,
conscience excites all these painful emotions, confusion,
foreboding, self-condemnation ; and on the other hand
it sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a
resignation, and a hope, which there is no sensible, no
earthly object to elicit. " The wicked flees, when no
one pursueth ; " then why does he flee ? whence his
terror ? Who is it that he sees in solitude, in dark-
ness, in the hidden chambers of his heart ? If the
cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible
world, the Object to which his perception is directed
must be Supernatural and Divine ; and thus the
phenomena of Conscience, as a dictate, avail to impress
the imagination with the picture * of a Supreme
Grovernor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing,
retributive, and is the creative principle of religion,
as the Moral Sense is the principle of ethics.
And let me here refer again to the fact, to which I
have already drawn attention, that this instinct of the
mind recognizing an external Master in the dictate of
conscience, and imaging the thought of Him in the
definite impressions which conscience creates, is parallel
to that other law of, not only human, but of brute
nature, by which the presence of unseen individual
beings is discerned under the shifting shapes and
colours of the visible world. Is it by sense, or by
I On the Formation of Images, vide tmpr. ch. iii. 1, pp. 27, 28.
Belief in One God. 1 1 1
reason, that brutes understand the real unities,
material and spiritual, which are signified by the
lights and shadows, the brilliant ever-changing cali-
doscope, as it may be called, which plays upon their
retina ? Not by reason, for they have not reason ; not
by sense, because they are transcending sense ; there-
fore it is an instinct. This faculty on the part of
brutes, unless we were used to it, would strike us as a
great mystery. It is one peculiarity of animal natures
to be susceptible of phenomena through the channels
of sense; it is another to have in those sensible
phenomena a perception of the individuals to which
this or that group of them belongs. This perception
of individual things, amid the maze of shapes and
colours which meets their sight, is given to brutes
in large measures, and that, apparently from the
moment of their birth. It is by no mere physical
instinct, such as that which leads him to his mother
for milk, that the new-dropped lamb recognizes each
of his fellow lambkins as a whole, consisting of many
parts bound up in one, and, before he is an hour old,
makes experience of his and their rival individualities.
And much more distinctly do the horse and dog
recognize even the personality of their master. How
are we to explain this apprehension of things, which
are one and individual, in the midst of a world of
pluralities and transmutations, whether in the instance
of brutes or again of children ? But until we account
for the knowledge which an infant has of his mother or
his nurse, what reason have we to take exception at
the doctrine, as strange and difficult, that in the dictate
1 1 2 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
oi conscience, without previous experiences or analo-
gical reasoning, lie is able gradually to perceive the
voice, or the echoes of the voice, of a Master, living,
personal, and sovereign ?
I grant, of course, that we cannot assign a date, ever
so early, before which he had learned nothing at all,
and formed no mental associations, from the words and
conduct of those who have the care of him. But still,
if a child of five or six years old, when reason is at
length fully awake, has already mastered and appro-
priated thoughts and beliefs, in consequence of their
teaching, in such sort as to be able to handle and
apply them familiarly, according to the occasion, as
principles of intellectual action, those beliefs at the
very least must be singularly congenial to his mind, if
not connatural with its initial action. And that such a
spontaneous reception of religious truths is common
with children, I shall take for granted, till I am con-
vinced that I am wrong in so doing. The child keenly
understands that there is a difference between right
and wrong ; and when he has done what he believes to
be wrong, he is conscious that he is offending One to
whom he is amenable, whom he does not see, who sees
him. His mind reaches forward with a strong presen-
timent to the thought of a Moral Governor, sovereigii
over him, mindful, and just. It comes to him like an
impulse of nature to entertain it.
It is my wish to take an ordinary child, but still one
who is safe from influences destructive of his religious
instincts. Supposing he has offended his parents, he
will all alone and without effort, as if it were the most
Belief in One God, 113
natural of acts, place himself in the presence of God,
and beg of Him to set him right with them. Let us
consider how much is contained in this simple act.
First, it involves the impression on his mind of an
unseen Being with whom he is in immediate relation,
and that relation so familiar that he can address
Him whenever he himself chooses; next, of One
whose goodwill towards him he is assured of, and
can take for granted — ^nay, who loves him better,
and is nearer to him, than his parents; further, of
One who can hear him, wherever he happens to be,
and who can read his thoughts, for his prayer need
not be vocal ; lastly, of One who can effect a critical
change in the state of feeling of others towards him.
That is, we shall not be wrong in holding that this
child has in his mind the image of an Invisible Being,
who exercises a particular providence among us, who
is present every where, who is heart-reading, heart-
changing, ever-accessible, open to impetration. What
a strong and intimate vision of God must he have
already attained, if, as I have supposed, an ordinary
trouble of mind has the spontaneous effect of leading
him for consolation and aid to an Invisible Personal
Power !
Moreover, this image brought before his mental vision
is the image of One who by implicit threat and promise
commands certain things which he, the same child coin-
cidently, by the same act of his mind, approves ; which
receive the adhesion of his moral sense and judgment, as
right and good. It is the image of One who is good,
inasmuch as enjoining and enforcing what is rigbt and
I
1 1 4 Apprehe7ision and Assent in Religion.
good, and who, in consequence, not only excites in the
child hope and fear, — nay (it may be added), gratitude
towards Him, as giving a law and maintaining it by
reward and punishment, — but kindles in him love to-
wards Him, as giving him a good law, and therefore as
being good Himself, for it is the property of goodness
to kindle love, or rather the very object of love is good-
ness ; and all those distinct elements of the moral law,
which the typical child, whom I am supposing, more or
less consciously loves and approves, — truth, purity, jus-
tice, kindness, and the like, — are but shapes and aspects
of goodness. And having in his degree a sensibility
towards them all, for the sake of them all he is moved
to love the Lawgiver, who enjoins them upon him.
And, as he can contemplate these qualities and their
manifestations under the common name of goodness,
lie is prepared to think of them as indivisible, corre-
lative, supplementary of each other in one and the same
Personality, so that there is no aspect of goodness
which God is not ; and that the more, because the
notion of a perfection embracing all possible excellences,
both moral and intellectual, is especially congenial to
the mind, and there are in fact intellectual attributes,
as well as moral, included in the child's image of God,
as above represented.
Such is the apprehension which even a child may
have of his Sovereign Lawgiver and Judge ; which is
possible in the case of children, because, at least, some
children possess it, whether others possess it or no ;
and which, when it is found in children, is found to act
promptly and keenly, by reason of the paucity of their
Belief in One God. 115
ideas. It is an image of the good God, good in Him-
self, good relatively to the child, with whatever incom-
pleteness; an image, before it has been reflected on, and
before it is recognized by him as a notion. Though
he cannot explain or define the word " God,'' when
told to use it, his acts show that to him it is far more
than a word. He listens, indeed, with wonder and
interest to fables or tales ; he has a dim, shadowy sense
of what he hears about persons and matters of this
world ; but he has that within him which actually
vibrates, responds, and gives a deep meaning to the
lessons of his first teachers about the will and the
providence of God.
How far this initial religious knowledge comes from
without, and how far from within, how much is natural,
how much implies a special divine aid which is above
nature, we have no means of determining, nor is it
necessary for my present purpose to determine. I am
not engaged in tracing the image of God in the mind
of a child or a man to its first origins, but showing that
he can become possessed of such an image, over and
above all mere notions of God, and in what that image
consists. Whether its elements, latent in the mind,
would ever be elicited without extrinsic help is very
doubtful ; but whatever be the actual history of the
first formation of the divine image within us, so far at
least is certain, that, by informations external to our-
selves, as time goes on, it admits of being strengthened
and improved. It is certain too, that, whether it grows
brighter and stronger, or, on the other hand, is dimmed,
distorted, or obhterated, depends on each of us indi-
I 2
1 1 6 Apprehension and Assent in Religion,
vidually, and on his circumstances. It is more than
probable that, in the event, from neglect, from the temp-
tations of life, from bad companions, or from the ur-
gency of secular occupations, the light of the soul will
fade away and die out. Men transgress their sense of
duty, and gradually lose those sentiments of shame and
fear, the natural supplements of transgression, which,
as I have said, are the witnesses of the Unseen Judge.
And, even were it deemed impossible that those who
had in their first youth a genuine apprehension of Him,
could ever utterly lose it, yet that apprehension may
become almost undistinguishable from an inferential
acceptance of the great truth, or may dwindle into a
mere notion of their intellect. On the contrary, the
image of God, if duly cherished, may expand, deepen,
and be completed, with the growth of their powers and
in the course of life, under the varied lessons, within
and without them, which are brought home to them
concerning that same God, One and Personal, by
means of education, social intercourse, experience, and
literature.
To a mind thus carefully formed upon the basis of its
natural conscience, the world, both of nature and of man,
does but give back a reflection of those truths about the
One Living God, which have been familiar to it from
childhood. Good and evil meet us daily as we pass
through life, and there are those who think it philoso-
phical to act towards the manifestations of each with
soine sorL of impartiality, as if evil had as much right
to be there as good, or even a better, as having more
striking triumphs and a broader jurisdiction. And be-
Belief in One God. 117
cause the course of things is determined by fixed laws,
they consider that those laws preclude the present
agency of the Creator in the carrying out of particular
issues. It is otherwise with the theology of a religious
imagination. It has a living hold on truths which are
really to be found in the world, though they are not
upon the surface. It is able to pronounce by antici-
pation, what it takes a long argument to prove — that
good is the rule, and evil the exception. It is able to
assume that, uniform as are the laws of nature, they are
consistent with a particular Providence. It interprets
what it sees around it by this previous inward teaching,
as the true key of that maze of vast complicated dis-
order ; and thus it gains a more and more consistent
and luminous vision of God from the most unpromising
materials. Thus conscience is a connecting principle
between the creature and his Creator ; and the firmest
hold of theological truths is gained by habits of per-
sonal religion. When men begin all their works with
the thought of God, acting for His sake, and to fulfil
His will, when they ask His blessing on themselves and
their life, pray to Him for the objects they desire, and
see Him in the event, whether it be according to their
prayers or not, they will find every thing that happens
tend to confirm them in the truths about Him which
live in their imagination, varied and unearthly as those
truths may be. Then they are brought into His pre-
sence as that of a Living Person, and are able to hold
converse with Him, and that with a directness and sim-
plicity, with a confidence and intimacy, mutatis mutau'
dis, which we use towards an earthly superior ; so that
1 1 8 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
it is doubtful whether we realize the company of our
fellow-men with greater keenness than these favoured
minds are able to contemplate and adore the Unseen,
Incomprehensible Creator.
This vivid apprehension of religious objects, on which
I have been enlarging, is independent of the written
records of Revelation ; it does not require any know-
ledge of Scripture, nor of the history or the teaching of
the Catholic Church. It is independent of books. But
if so much may be traced out in the twilight of Natural
Religion, it is obvious how great an addition in fulness
and exactness is made to our mental image of the
Divine Personality and Attributes, by the light of
Christianity. And, indeed, to give us a clear and
sufficient object for our faith, is one main purpose of
the supernatural Dispensations of Religion. This pur-
pose is carried out in the written Word, with an effec-
tiveness which inspiration alone could secure, first, by
the histories which form so large a portion of the Old
Testament ; and scarcely less impressively in the pro-
phetical system, as it is gradually unfolded and perfected
in the writings of those who were its ministers and
spokesmen. And as the exercise of the affections
strengthens our apprehension of the object of them, it
is impossible to exaggerate the influence exerted on the
religious imagination by a book of devotions so sub-
lime, so penetrating, so full of deep instruction as the
Psalter, to say nothing of other portions of the Hagio-
grapha. And then as regards the New Testament, the
Gospels, from their subject, contain a manifestation of
the Divine Nature, so special, as to make it appear
Belief in One God. 119
from the contrast as if nothing were known of God,
when they are unknown. Lastly, the Apostolic Epistles,
the long history of the Church, with its fresh and fresh
exhibitions of Divine Agency, the Lives of the Saints,
and the reasonings, internal collisions, and decisions of
the Theological School, form an extended comment on
the words and works of our Lord.
I think I need not say more in illustration of the
subject which I proposed for consideration in this Sec-
tion. I have wished to trace the process by which the
mind arrives, not only at a notional, but at an imaginative
or real assent to the doctrine that there is One God, that
is, an assent made with an apprehension, not only of
what the words of the proposition mean, but of the
object denoted by them. Without a proposition or
thesis there can be no assent, no belief, at all ; any more
than there can be an inference without a conclusion.
The proposition that there is One Personal and Present
God may be held in either way ; either as a theological
truth, or as a religious fact or reality. The notion and
the reality assented-to are represented by one and the
same proposition, but serve as distinct interpretations of
it. When the proposition is apprehended for the purposes
of proof, analysis, comparison, and the like intellectual
exercises, it is used as the expression of a notion ; when
for the purposes of devotion, it is the image of a reality.
Theology, properly and directly, deals with notional
apprehension ; religion with imaginative.
Here we have the solution of the common mistake of
supposing that there is a contrariety and antagonism
between a dogmatic creed and vital religion. People
1 20 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
urge that salvation consists, not in believing the pro-
positions that there is a God, that there is a Saviour
that our Lord is God, that there is a Trinity, but in
believing' in God, in a Saviour, in a Sanctifier; and
they object that such propositions are but a formal and
human medium destroying all true reception of the
Gospel, and making religion a matter of words or of
logic, instead of its having its seat in the heart. They
are right so far as this, that men can and sometimes do
rest in the propositions themselves as expressing intel-
lectual notions; they are wrong, when they maintain
that men need do so or always do so. The propositions
may and must be used, and can easily be used, as the
expression of facts, not notions, and they are necessary
to the mind in the same way that language is ever
necessary for denoting facts, both for ourselves as
individuals, and for our intercourse with others. Again,
they are useful in their dogmatic aspect as ascertaining
and making clear for us the truths on which the
religious imagination has to rest. Knowledge must
ever precede the exercise of the affections. We feel
gratitude and love, we feel indignation and dislike, when
we have the informations actually put before us which
are to kindle those several emotions. We love our
parents, as our parents, when we know them to be our
parents ; we must know concerning God, before we can
feel love, fear, hope, or trust towards Him. Devotion
must have its objects ; those objects, as being super-
natural, when not represented to our senses by material
symbols, must be set before the mind in propositions.
The formula, which embodies a dogma for the theologian,
Belief in One God,
121
readily suggests an object for the ■worshipper. It seems
a truism to say, yet it is all that I have been saying,
that in religion the imagination and affections should
always be under the control of reason. Theology may
stand as a substantive science, though it be without the
life of religion ; but religion cannot maintain its ground
at all without theology. Sentiment, whether imaginative
or emotional, falls back upon the intellect for its stay,
when sense cannot be called into exercise ; and it is in
this way that devotion falls back upon dogma.
1 2 2 Apprehension and Assent in Religion,
§ 2. Belief in the Holy Trinitt.
Of course I cannot hope to carry all inquiring minds
with me in what I have been laying down in the fore-
going Section. I have appealed to the testimony given
implicitly by our conscience to the Divine Being and
His Attributes^ and there are those, I know, whose
experience will not respond to the appeal : — doubtless ;
but are there any truths which have reality, whether of
experience or of reason, which are not disputed by some
schools of philosophy or some bodies of men ? If we
assume nothing but what has universal reception, the
field of our possible discussions will suffer much con-
traction ; so that it must be considered sufficient in any
inquiry, if the principles or facts assumed have a large
following. This condition is abundantly fulfilled as
regards the authority and religious meaning of con-
science ; — that conscience is the voice of God has almost
grown into a proverb. This solemn dogma is recog-
nized as such by the great mass both of the young and of
the uneducated, by the religious few and the irreligious
many. It is proclaimed in the history and literature of
nations ; it has had supporters in all ages, places, creeds
forms of social life, professions, and classes. It has held
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 123
its ground under great intellectual and moral disad-
vantages ; it has recovered its supremacy, and ultimately
triumphed in the minds of those who had rebelled
against it. Even philosophers, who have been antago-
nists on other points, agree in recognizing the inward
voice of that solemn Monitor, personal, peremptory,
unargumentative, irresponsible, minatory, definitive.
This I consider relieves me of the necessity of arguing
with those who would resolve our sense of right and
wrong into a sense of the Expedient or the Beautiful, or
would refer its authoritative suggestions to the effect of
teaching or of association. There are those who can see
and hear for all the common purposes of life, yet have no
eye for colours or their shades, or no ear for music •
moreover, there are degrees of sensibility to colours and
to sounds, in the comparison of man with man, while
some men are stone-blind or stone-deaf. Again, all men,
as time goes on, have the prospect of losing that keen-
ness of sight and hearing which they possessed in their
youth i and so, in like manner, we may lose in manhood
and in age that sense of a Supreme Teacher and Judge
which was the gift of our first years ; and that the more,
because in most men the imagination suffers from the
lapse of time and the experience of life, long before the
bodily senses fail. And this accords with the advice of
the sacred writer to '' remember our Creator in the days
of our youth," while our moral sensibilities are fresh >
'^ before the sun. and the light and the moon and the
stars be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain."
Accordingly, if there be those who deny that the dictate
of conscience is ever more than a taste, or an association.
124 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
it is a less difficulty to me to believe that they are defi-
cient either in the religious sense or in their memory of
early years, than that they never had at all what those
around them without hesitation profess, in their own
case, to have received from nature.
So much on the doctrine of the Being and Attributes
of God, and of the real apprehension with which we can
contemplate and assent to it : — now I turn to the doc-
trine of the Holy Ti-inity, with the purpose of investi-
gating in like manner how far it belongs to theology,
how far to the faith and devotion of the individual; how
far the propositions enunciating it are confined to the
expression of intellectual notions, and how far they
stand for things also, and admit of that assent which we
give to objects presented to us by the imagination*
And first I have to state what our doctrine is.
No one is to be called a Theist, who does not believe
in a Personal God, whatever difficulty there may be in
defining the word " Personal/' Now it is the belief of
Catholics about the Supreme Being, that this essential
characteristic of His Nature is reiterated in three distinct
ways or modes ; so that the Almighty God, instead of
being One Person only, which is the teaching of Natural
Religion, has Three Personalities, and is at once, accord-
ing as we view Him in the one or the other of them, the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit — a Divine Three, who
bear towards Each Other the several relations which
those names indicate, and are in that respect distinct
from Each Other, and in that alone.
This is the teaching of the Athanasian Creed ; viz.
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 125
that the One Personal God, who is not a logical or phy-
sical unity, but a Living Monas, more really one even
than an individual man is one — He ("unus," not
" unum," because of the inseparability of His Nature and
Personality), — He at once is Father, is Son, is Holy
Ghost, Each of whom is that One Personal God in the
fulness of His Being and Attributes ; so that the Father
is all that is meant by the word " God,'' as if we knew
nothing of Son, or of Spirit ; and in like manner the
Son and the Spirit are Each by Himself all that is
meant by the word, as if the Other Two were un-
known ; moreover, that by the word " God " is meant
nothing over and above what is meant by " the Father,"
or by "the Son,'' or by "the Holy Ghost;" and that
the Father is in no sense the Son, nor the Son the
Holy Ghost, nor the Holy Ghost the Father. Such is
the prerogative of the Divine Infinitude, that that One
and Single Personal Being, the Almighty God, is really
Three, while He is absolutely One.
Indeed, the Catholic dogma may be said to be summed
up in this very formula, on which St. Augustine lays so
much stress, " Tres et Unus," not merely " Unum ;"
hence that formula is the key-note, as it may be called,
of the Athanasian Creed. In that Creed we testify to
the Unus Increatus, to the Unus Immensus, Omnipo-
tens, Deus, and Dominus ; yet Each of the Three also
is by Himself Increatus, Immensus, Omnipotens, for
Each is that One God, though Each is not the Other ;
Each, as is intimated by Unus Increatus, is the One
Personal God of Natural Religion.
That this doctrine, thus drawn out, is of a notional
1 26 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
character, is plain ; the question before me is whether
in any sense it can become the object of real apprehen-
sion, that is, whether any portion of it may be con-
sidered as addressed to the imagination, and is able to
exert that living mastery over the mind, which is
instanced as I have shown above, as regards the
proposition, '' There is a God."
" There is a God,'' when really apprehended, is the
object of a sti-ong energetic adhesion, which works a
revolution in the mind ; but when held merely as a
notion, it requires but a cold and ineffective acceptance,
though it be held ever so unconditionally. Such in its
character is the assent of thousands, whose imaginations
are not at all kindled, nor their hearts inflamed, nor
their conduct affected, by the most august of all con-
ceivable truths. I ask, then, as concerns the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity, such as I have drawn it out to be, is it
capable of being apprehended otherwise than notionally ?
Is it a theory, undeniable indeed, but addressed to the
student, and to no one else? Is it the elaborate, subtle,
triumphant exhibition of a truth, completely developed,
and happily adjusted, and accurately balanced on its
centre, and impregnable on every side, as a scientific
view, " totus, teres, atque rotundus,'' challenging all
assailants, or, on the other hand, does it come to the
unlearned, the young, the busy, and the afflicted, as a
fact which is to arrest them, penetrate them, and to sup-
port and animate them in their passage through life ?
That is, does it admit of being held in the imagination,
and being embraced with a real assent ? I maintain it
does, and that it is the normal faith which every Chris-
Belief in the Holy Trinity, 127
tian has, on which he is stayed, which is his spiritual
life, there being nothing in the exposition of the dogma,
as I have given it above, which does not address the
imagination, as well as the intellect.
Now let us observe what is not in that exposition ; —
there are no scientific terms in it. I will not allow that
" Personal " is such, because it is a word in common use,
and though it cannot mean precisely the same when
used of God as when it is used of man, yet it is
sufficiently explained by that common use, to allow of
its being intelligibly applied to the Divine Nature.
The other words, which occur in the above account of
the doctrine, — Three, One, He, God, Father, Son, Spirit,
— are none of them words peculiar to theology, have
all a popular meaning, and are used according to that
obvious and popular meaning, when introduced into the
Catholic dogma. No human words indeed are worthy
of the Supreme Being, none are adequate ; but we have
no other words to use but human, and those in question
are among the simplest and most intelligible that are to
be found in language.
There are then no terms in the foregoing exposition
which do not admit of a plain sense, and they are there
used in that sense ; and, moreover, that sense is what I
have called real, for the words in their ordinary use
stand for things. The words. Father, Son, Spirit, He,
One, and the rest, are not abstract terms, but concrete,
and adapted to excite images. And these words thus
simple and clear, are embodied in simple, clear, brief,
categorical propositions. There is nothing abstruse
either in the terms themselves, or in their setting. It
1 28 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
is otherwise of coarse with formal theological treatises
on the subject of the dogma. There we find such words
as substance, essence, existence, form, subsistence, no-
tion, circumincession ; and, though these are far easier
to understand than might at first sight be thought,
still they are doubtless addressed to the intellect, and
can only command a notional assent.
It will be observed also that not even the words
*' mysteriousness " and " mystery " occur in the expo-
sition which I have above given of the doctrine; I
omitted them, because they are not parts of the Divine
Verity as such, but in relation to creatures and to the
human intellect; and because they are of a notional
character. It is plain of course even at first sight that
the doctrine is an inscrutable mystery, or has an in-
scrutable mysteriousness ; few minds indeed but have
theology enough to see this ; and if an educated man, to
whom it is presented, does not perceive that mysterious-
ness at once, that is a sure token that he does not
rightly apprehend the propositions which contain the
doctrine. Hence it follows that the thesis "the doctrine
of the Holy Trinity in Unity is mysterious " is indirectly
an article of faith. But such an article, being a reflec-
tion made upon a revealed truth in an inference, ex-
presses a notion, not a thing. It does not relate to the
direct apprehension of the object, but to a judgment
of our reason upon the object. Accordingly the mys-
teriousness of the doctrine is not, strictly speaking,
intrinsical to it, as it is proposed to the religious appre-
hension, though in matter of fact a devotional mind, on
perceiving that mysteriousness, will lovingly appropriate
Belief in tJie Holy Trinity. 129
it, as involved in tlie divine revelation ; and, as such a
mind turns all thoughts which come before it to a
sacred use, so will it dwell upon the Mystery of the
Trinity with awe and veneration, as a truth befitting,
so to say, the Immensity and Incomprehensibility of
the Supreme Being.
However, I do not put forward the mystery as the
direct object of real or religious apprehension; nor
again, the complex doctrine (when it is viewed, 'per
modum unius, a,s one whole), in which the mystery lies.
Let it be observed, it is possible for the mind to hold a
number of propositions either in their combination as one
whole, or one by one ; one by one, with an intelligent
perception indeed of all, and of the general direction of
each towards the rest, yet of each separately from the
rest, for its own sake only, and not in connexion
and one with the rest. Thus I may know London
quite well, and find my way from street to street in any
part of it without difficulty, yet be quite unable to draw
a map of it. Comparison, calculation, cataloguing,
arranging, classifying, are intellectual acts subsequent
upon, and not necessary for, a real apprehension of the
things on which they are exercised. Strictly speaking
then, the dogma of the Holy Trinity, as a complex
whole, or as a mystery, is not the formal object of re-
ligious apprehension and assent ; but as it is a number
of propositions, taken one by one. That complex whole
also is the object of assent, but it is the notional object;
and when presented to religious minds, it is received by
them notionally; and again implicitly, viz. in the real
assent which they give to the word of God as conveyed
K
1 30 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
to them through the instrumentality of His Church.
On these points it may be right to enlarge.
Of course, as I have been saying, a man of ordinary
intelligence will be at once struck with the apparent
contrariety between the propositions one with another
which constitute the Heavenly Dogma, and, by reason
of his spontaneous activity of mind and by an habitual
association, he will be compelled to view the Dogma in
the light of that contrariety, — so much so, that to hold
one and all of these separate propositions will be to such
a man all one with holding the mystery, as a mystery ;
and in consequence he will so hold it ; — but still, I say,
so far he will hold it only with a notional apprehension.
He will accurately take in the meaning of each of the
dogmatic propositions in its relation to the rest of them,
combining them into one whole and embracing what he
cannot realize, with an assent, notional indeed, but as
genuine and thorough as any real assent can be. But
the question is whether a real assent to the mystery, as
such, is possible ; and I say it is not possible, because,
though we can image the separate propositions, we can-
not image them all together. We ca.nnot, because the
mystery transcends all our experience; we have no
experiences in our memory which we can put together,
compare, contrast, unite, and thereby transmute into an
image of the Ineffable Verity; — certainly; but what t«
in some degree a matter of experience, what is presented
for the imagination, the aflfections, the devotion, the
spiritual life of the Christian to repose upon with a real
assent, what stands for things, not for notions only, is
each of those propositions taken one by one, and that.
Belief in the Holy Trinity, 131
not in the case of intellectual and thoughtful minds only,
but of all religious minds whatever, in the case of a
child or a peasant, as well as of a philosopher.
This is only one instance of a general principle which
holds good in all such real apprehension as is possible to
us, of God and His Attributes. Not only do we see
Him at best only in shadows, but we cannot bring even
those shadows together, for they flit to and fro, and are
never present to us at once. We can indeed combine
the various matters which we know of Him by an act of
the intellect, and treat them theologically, but such
theological combinations are no objects for the imagina-
tion to gaze upon. Our image of Him never is one,
but broken into numberless partial aspects, independent
each of each. As we cannot see the whole starry
firmament at once, but have to turn ourselves from east
to west, and then round to east again, sighting first one
constellation and then another, and losing these in order
to gain those, so it is, and much more, with such real
apprehensions as we can secure of the Divine Nature.
We know one truth about Him and another truth, —
but we cannot image both of them together ; we cannot
bring them before us by one act of the mind; we drop
the one while we turn to take up the other. None of
them are fully dwelt on and enjoyed, when they are
viewed in combination. Moreover, our devotion is tried
and confused by the long list of propositions which theo-
logy is obliged to draw up, by the limitations, ex-
planations, definitions, adjustments, balancings, cautions,
arbitrary prohibitions, which are imperatively required
by the weakness of human thought and the imperfections
K 2
1 3 2 Apprehension and Assent i?i Religion.
of human languages. Such exercises of reasoning indeed
do but increase and harmonize our notional apprehension
of the dogma, but they add little to the luminousness
and vital force with which its separate propositions come
home to our imagination, and if they are necessary, as
they certainly are, they are necessary not so much for
faith, as against unbelief.
Break a ray of light into its constituent colours, each
is beautiful, each may be enjoyed ; attempt to unite
them, and perhaps you produce only a dirty white. The
pure and indivisible Light is seen only by the blessed
inhabitants of heaven ; here we have but such faint
reflections of it as its diflfraction supplies ; but they are
sufficient for faith and devotion. Attempt to combine
them into one, and you gain nothing but a mystery,
which you can describe as a notion, but cannot depict as
an imagination. And this, which holds of the Divine
Attributes, holds also of the Holy Trinity in Unity.
And hence, perhaps, it is that the latter doctrine is never
spoken of as a Mystery in the sacred book, which is
addressed far more to the imagination and affections than
to the intellect. Hence, too, what is more remarkable,
in the Creeds the dogma is not called a mystery ; not in
the Apostles' nor the Nicene, nor even in the Athanasian.
The reason seems to be, that the Creeds have a place in
the Ritual ; they are devotional acts, and of the nature
of prayers, addressed to God ; and, in such addresses, to
speak of intellectual difficulties would be out of place.
It must be recollected especially that the Athanasian
Creed has sometimes been called the " Psalmus Qui-
cunque." It is not a mere collection of notions, however
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 133
momentous. It is a psalm or hymn of praise, of
confession, and of profound, self-prostrating homage,
parallel to the canticles of the elect in the Apocalypse.
It appeals to the imagination quite as much as to the
intellect. It is the war-song of faith, with which we
wai-n first ourselves, then each other, and then all those
who are within its hearing, and the hearing of the
Truth, who our God is, and how we must worship Him,
and how vast our responsibility will be, if we know what
to believe, and yet believe not. It is
" The Psalm that gathers in one glorious lay-
All chants that e'er from heaven to earth found way ;
Creed of the Saints, and Anthem of the Blest,
And calm-breathed warning of the kindliest love
That ever heaved a wakeful mother's breast."
For myself, I have ever felt it as the most simple and
sublime, the most devotional formulary to which Chris-
tianity has given birth, more so even than the Yeni
Creator and the Te Deum. Even the antithetical form
of its sentences, which is a stumbling-block to so many,
as seeming to force, and to exult in forcing a mystery
upon recalcitrating minds, has to my apprehension,
even notionally considered, a very different drift. It
is intended as a check upon our reasonings, lest they
rush on in one direction beyond the limits of the truth,
and it turns them back into the opposite direction.
Certainly it implies a glorying in the Mystery ; but it
is not simply a statement of the Mystery for the sake
of its mysteriousness.
What is more remarkable still, a like silence as to
the mysteriousness of the doctrine is observed in the
successive definitions of the Church concerning it.
1 34 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
Confession after confession, canon after canon is drawn
up in the course of centuries ; Popes and Councils have
found it their duty to insist afresh upon the dogma ;
they have enunciated it in new or additional propo-
sitions ; but not even in their most elaborate formu-
laries do they use the word " mystery/' as far as I
know. The great Council of Toledo pursues the
scientific ramifications of the doctrine, with the exact
diligence of theology, at a length four times that of
the Athanasian Creed; the fourth Lateran completes,
by a final enunciation, the development of the sacred
doctrine after the mind of St. Augustine ; the Creed
of Pope Pius rV. prescribes the general rule of faith
against the heresies of these latter times ; but in none
of them do we find either the word " mystery,'* or any
suggestion of mysteriousness.
Such is the usage of the Church in its dogmatic
statements concerning the Holy Trinity, as if fulfilling
the maxim, '* Lex orandi, lex credendi." I suppose it
is founded on a tradition, because the custom is other-
wise as regards catechisms and theological treatises.
These belong to particular ages and places, and are
addressed to the intellect. In them, certainly, the
mysteriousness of the doctrine is almost uniformly
insisted on. But, however this contrast of usage is
to be explained, the Creeds are enough to show that
the dogma may be taught in its fulness for the pur-
poses of popular faith and devotion without directly
insisting on that mysteriousness, which is necessarily
involved in the combined view of its separate pro-
positions. That systematized whole is the object of
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 135
notional assent, and its propositions, one by one, are
the objects of real.
To show this in fact, I will enumerate the separate
propositions of which the dogma consists. They are
nine, and stand as follows : —
1 . There are Three who give testimony in heaven,
the Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2. From the Father is, and ever has been, the Son.
3. From the Father and Son is, and ever has been, the
Spirit.
4. The Father is the One Eternal Personal God.
6. The Son is the One Eternal Personal God. 6. The
Spirit is the One Eternal Personal God.
7. The Father is not the Son. 8. The Son is not
the Holy Ghost. 9. The Holy Ghost is not the
Father.
Now I think it is a fact, that, whereas these nine
propositions contain the Mystery, yet, taken, not as
a whole, but separately, each by itself, they are not
only apprehensible, but admit of a real apprehension.
Thus, for instance, if the proposition " There is One
who bears witness of Himself," or " reveals Himself,"
would admit of a real assent, why does not also the
proposition " There are Three who bear witness " ?
Again, if the word " God " may create an image in
our minds, why may not the proposition " The Father
is God " ? or again, " The Son," or " The Holy Ghost
is God"?
Again, to say that " the Son is other than the Holy
Ghost," or " neither Son nor Holy Ghost is the Father,"
is not a simple negative, but also a declaration that
136 Appi'ehension and Assent in Religion.
Each of the Divine Three by Himself is complete in
Himself, and simply and absolutely God as though the
Other Two were not revealed to us.
Again, from our experience of the works of man, we
accept with a real apprehension the proposition " The
Angels are made by God/' correcting the word "made/'
as is required in the case of a creating Power, and a
spiritual work : — why then may we not in like matter
refine and elevate the human analogy, yet keep the
image, when a Divine Birth is set before us in terms
which properly belong to what is human and earthly ?
If our experience enables us to apprehend the essential
fact of sonship, as being a communication of being and
of nature from one to another, why should we not there-
by in a certain measure realize the proposition " The
Word is the Son of God " ?
Again, we have abundant instances in nature of the
general law of one thing coming from another or from
others : — as the child issues in the man as his successor,
and the child and the man issue in the old man, like
them both, but not the same, so different as almost to
have a fresh personality distinct from each, so we may
form some image, however vague, of the procession of
the Holy Spirit from Father and Son. This is what I
should say of the propositions which I have numbered
two and three, which are the least susceptible of a real
assent out of the nine.
So much at first- sight; but the force of what I have
been saying will be best understood, by considering
what Scripture and the Ritual of the Church witness in
accordance with it. In referring to these two great
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 137
store-houses of faith and devotion, I must premise, as
when I spoke of the Being of a God, that I am not
proving by means of them the dogma of the Holy
Trinity, but using the one and the other in illustra-
tion of the action of the separate articles of that
dogma upon the imagination, though the complex
truth, in which, when combined, they issue, is not
in sympathy or correspondence with it, but altogether
beyond it; and next of the action and influence of
those separate articles, by means of the imagination,
upon the affections and obedience of Christians, high
and low.
This being understood, I ask what chapter of St.
John or St. Paul is not full of the Three Divine Names,
introduced in one or other of the above nine proposi-
tions, expressed or implied, or in their parallels, or in
parts or equivalents of them ? What lesson is there
given us by these two chief writers of the New Testa-
ment, which does not grow out of Their Persons and
Their Offices ? At one time we read of the grace of the
Second Person, the love of the First, and the commu-
nication of the Third ; at another we are told by the
Son, *' I will pray the Father, and He will send you
another Paraclete ;" and then, " All that the Father
hath are Mine ; the Paraclete shall receive of Mine."
Then again we read of "the foreknowledge of the
Father, the sanctification of the Spirit, the Blood of
Jesus Christ ;" and again we are to " pray in the Holy
Ghost, abide in the love of God, and look for the mercy
of Jesus." And so, in like manner, to Each, in one
passage or another, are ascribed the same titles and
138 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
works : Each is acknowledged as Lord ; Each is eternal
Each is Truth ; Each is Holiness ; Each is all in all
Each is Creator ; Each wills with a Supreme Will
Each is the Author of the new birth ; Each speaks in
His ministers ; Each is the Revealer ; Each is the Law-
giver ; Each is the Teacher of the elect ; in Each the
elect have fellowship ; Each leads them on ; Each raises
them from the dead. What is all this, but " the Father
Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal ;
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Omnipotent; the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost God," of the Athanasian
Creed ? And if the New Testament be, as it con-
fessedly is, so real in its teaching, so luminous, so
impressive, so constraining, so full of images, so
sparing in mere notions, whence is this but because,
in its references to the Object of our supreme wor-
ship, it is ever ringing the changes (so to say) on
the nine propositions which I have set down, and
on the particular statements into which they may
be severally resolved ?
Take one of them as an instance, viz, the dog-
matic sentence "The Son is God." What an illus-
tration of the real assent which can be given to this
proposition, and its power over our afifections and
emotions, is the first half of the first chapter of St.
John's gospel ! or again the vision of our Lord in
the first chapter of the Apocalypse ! or the first
chapter of St. John's first Epistle ! Again, how
burning are St. Paul's words when he speaks of our
Lord's crucifixion and death ! what is the secret of
that flame, but this same dogmatic sentence, " The
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 139
Son is God " ? wliy should the death of the Son be
more awful than any other death, except that He
though man, was God ? And so, again, all through
the Old Testament, what is it which gives an inter-
pretation and a persuasive power to so many pas-
sages and portions, especially of the Psalms and the
Prophets, but this same theological formula, " The
Messias is God," a proposition which never could
thus vivify in the religious mind the letter of the
sacred text, unless it appealed to the imagination, and
could be held with a much stronger assent than any
that is merely notional.
This same power of the dogma may be illustrated
from the Ritual. Consider the services for Christmas
or Epiphany ; for Easter, Ascension, and (I may say)
pre-eminently Corpus Christi; what are these great
Festivals but comments on the words, '^ The Son is
God " ? Yet who will say that they have the subtlety,
the aridity, the coldness of mere scholastic science ?
i Are they addressed to the pure intellect, or to the
imagination ? do they interest our logical faculty, or
I excite our devotion? Why is it that personally we
[often find ourselves so ill-fitted to take part in them,
lexcept that we are not good enough, that in our case
I the dogma is far too much a theological notion, far too
; little an image living within us ? And so again, as to
I the Divinity of the Holy Ghost : consider the breviary
[oflBces for Pentecost and its Octave, the grandest, per-
haps in the whole year ; are they created out of mere
abstractions and inferences, or what are sometimes
called metaphysical distinctions, or has not the cate-
140 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
gorical proposition of St. Athanasius, " The Holy Ghost
is God/' such a place in the imagination and the heart,
as suffices to give birth to the noble Hymns, Veni
Creator, and Veni Sancte Spiritus?
I sum up then to the same effect as in the preceding
Section. Religion has to do with the real, and the real
is the particular; theology has to do with what is
notional, and the notional is the general and systematic.
Hence theology has to do with the Dogma of the Holy
Trinity as a whole made up of many propositions ; but
Religion has to do with each of those separate propo-
sitions which compose it, and lives and thrives in the
contemplation of them. In them it finds the motives
for devotion and faithful obedience; while theology on
the other hand forms and protects them by virtue of
its function of regarding them, not merely one by one,
but as a system of truth.
One other remark is in place here. If the separate
articles of the Athanasian Creed are so closely con-
nected with vital and personal religion as I have shown
them to be, if they supply motives on which a man may
act, if they determine the state of mind, the special
thoughts, affections, and habits, which he carries with
him from this world to the next, is there cause to
wonder, that the Creed should proclaim aloud, that
those who are not internally such as Christ, by means
of it, came to make them, are not capable of the
heaven to which He died to bring them ? Is not the
importance of accepting the dogma the very explana-
tion of that careful minuteness with which the few
simple truths which compose it are inculcated, are
^"
Belief in the Holy THnity. 141
reiterated, in the Creed ? And sliall tlie Churcli of
God, to whom " the dispensation " of the Gospel is
committed, forget the concomitant obligation, " Woe
is unto me if I preach not the Gospel " ? Are her
ministers by their silence to bring upon themselves the
Prophet's anathema, " Cursed is he that doth the work
of the Lord deceitfully '* ? Can they ever forget the
lesson conveyed to them in the Apostle's protestation,
" God is faithful, as our preaching which was among
you was not Yea and Nay. . . . For we are a good
odour of Christ unto God in them that are in the way
of salvation, and in them that are perishing. For we
are not as the many, who adulterate the word of God ;
but with sincerity, but as from God, in the presence of
God, so speak we in Christ " ?
142 AppreJiension and Assent in Religion.
§ 3. Belief in Dogmatic Theology.
It is a familiar charge against the Catholic Church in the
mouths of her opponents, that she imposes on her children
as matters of faith, not only such dogmas as have an
intimate bearing on moral conduct and character, but a
great numberof doctrines which none but professed theo-
logians can understand, and which in consequence do
but oppress the mind, and are the perpetual fuel of con-
troversy. The first who made this complaint was no
less a man than the great Constantino, and on no less an
occasion than the rise of the Arian heresy, which he, aa
yet a catechumen, was pleased to consider a trifling and
tolerable error. So deciding the matter, he wrote at
once a letter to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and to
Arius, who was a presbyter in the same city, exhorting
them to drop the matter in dispute, and to live in peace
with one another. He was answered by the meeting of
the Council of Nicaea, and by the insertion of the word
•' Consubstantial " into the Creed of the Church.
What the Emperor thought of the controversy itself,
that Bishop Jeremy Taylor thought of the insertion of
the " Consubstantial," viz. that it was a mischievous
affair, and ought never to have taken place. He thus
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 143
quotes and comments on the Emperor's letter : " The
Epistle of Constantine to Alexander and Arius tells the
truth, and chides them both for commencing the ques-
tion, Alexander for broaching it, Arius for taking it up.
And although this be true, that it had been better for
the Church it had never begun, yet, being begun, what
is to be done with it ? Of this also, in that admirable
epistle, we have the Emperor^s judgment (I suppose not
without the advice and privity of Hosius), . . . for first
he calls it a certain vain piece of a question, ill begun and
more unadvisedly published, — a question which no law or
ecclesiastical canon defineth; a fruitless contention; the
product of idle brains ; a matter so nice, so obscure, so
intricate, that it was neither to be explicated by the clergy
nor understood by the people; a dispute of words, a doc-
trine inexplicable, but most dangerous when taught, lest
it introduce discord or blasphemy; and, therefore, the
objector was rash, and the answer unadvised, for it con-
cerned not the substance of faith or the worship of God,
nor the chief commandment of Scripture; and, therefore,
why should it be the matter of discord? for though the
matter be grave, yet, because neither necessary nor ex-
phcable, the contention is trifling and toyish. ... So
that the matter being of no great importance, but vain
and a toy in respect of the excellent blessings of peace and
charity it were good that Alexander and Arius should
leave contending, keep their opinions to themselves, ask
each other forgiveness, and give mutual toleration."*
Moreover, Taylor is of opinion that " they both did
believe One God, and the Holy Trinity;" an opinion in
1 Liberty of Prophesying, § 2.
144 Apprehensio7i and Assent in Religion.
the teeth of historical fact. Also he is of opinion, that
" that faith is best which hath greatest simplicity, and
that it is better in all cases humbly to submit, than
curiously to inquire and pry into the mystery under the
cloud, and to hazard our faith by improving know-
ledge." He is, further, of opinion, that '' if the Nicene
Fathers had done so too, possibly the Church would
never have repented it.'^ He also thinks that their
insertion of the " Consubstantial " into the Creed was
a bad precedent.
Whether it was likely to act as a precedent or not, it
has not been so in fact, for fifteen hundred years have
passed since the Nicene Council, and it is the one
instance of a scientific word having been introduced into
the Creed from that day to this. And after all, the
word in question has a plain meaning, as the Council
used it, easily stated and intelligible to all ; for " con-
sub tantial with the Father," means nothing more than
" really one with the Father," being adopted to meet
the evasion of the Arians. The Creed then remains now
what it was in the beginning, a popular form of faith,
suited to every age, class, and condition. Its declara-
tions are categorical, brief, clear, elementary, of the first
importance, expressive of the concrete, the objects of
real apprehension, and the basis and rule of devotion.
As to the proper Nicene formula itself, excepting the
one term " Consubstantial," it has not a word which
does not relate to the rudimental facts of Christianity.
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan and the various ante-
Nicene Symbols, of which the Apostles' is one, add
summarily one or two notional articles, such as " the
Belief in Dogmatic Theology, 145
communion of Saints," and "the forgiveness of sins,"
which, however, may be readily converted into real pro-
positions. On the other hand, one chief dogma, which
is easy to popular apprehension, is necessarily absent
from all of them, the Real Presence \ but the omission
is owing to the ancient " Disciplina Arcani," which
withheld the Sacred Mystery from catechumens and
heathen, to whom the Creed was known.
So far the charge which Taylor brings forward has
no great plausibility ; but it is not the whole of his
case. I cannot deny that a large and ever- increasing
collection of propositions, abstract notions, not concrete
truths, become, by the successive definitions of Coun-
cils, a portion of the credenda, and have an imperative
claim upon the faith of every Catholic; and this being
the case, it will be asked me how I am borne out by
facts in enlarging, as I have done, on the simplicity
and directness, on the tangible reality, of the Church's
dogmatic teaching.
I will suppose the objection urged thus : — why has
not the Catholic Church limited her credenda to proposi-
tions such as those in her Creed, concrete and practical,
easy of apprehension, and of a character to win assent ?
such as " Christ is God;" " This is My Body;" " Bap-
tism gives life to the soul ;" " The Saints intercede for
ns;" "Death, judgment, heaven, hell, the four last
things ;" " There are seven gifts of the Holy Ghost,''
" three theological virtues," " seven capital sins," and
the like, as they are found in her catechisms. On the
contrary, she makes it imperative on every one, priest
and layman, to profess as revealed truth all the canons of
L
1 46 Apprehension and Assent in Religion,
the Councils, and innumerable decisions of Popes, propo-
sitions so various, so notional, that but few can know
them, and fewer can understand them. What sense, for
instance, can a child or a peasant, nay, or any ordinary
Catholic, put upon the Tridentine Canons, even in
translation ? such as, " Siquis dixerit homines sine
Christi justitia, per quam nobis meruit, justificari, aut
per earn ipsam formaliter justos esse, anathema sit ;" or
"Siquis dixerit justificatum peccare, dum intuitu setemae
mercedis bene operatur, anathema sit." Or again, con-
sider the very anathematism annexed by the Nicene
Council to its Creed, the language of which is so obscure,
that even theologians differ about its meaning. It runs
as follows : — " Those who say that once the Son was not,
and before He was begotten He was not,and that He wa3
made out of that which was not, or who pretend that He
was of other hypostasis or substance, or that the Son of
God is created, mutable, or alterable, the Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Church anathematizes.^' These doctrinal
enunciations are dejide; peasants are bound to believe
them as weU as controversialists, and to believe them as
truly as they believe that our Lord is God. How then
are the Catholic credenda easy and within reach of all
men ?
I begin my answer to this objection by recurring to
what has already been said concerning the relation of
theology with its notional propositions to religious and
devotional assent. Devotion is excited doubtless by the
plain, categorical truths of revelation, such as the articles
of the Creed ; on these it depends ; with these it is satis-
fied. It accepts them one by one ; it is careless about
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 147
intellectual consistency ; it draws from each of them the
spiritual nourishment which it was intended to supply.
Far different, certainly, is the nature and duty of the
intellect. It is ever active, inquisitive, penetrating ; it
examines doctrine and doctrine ; it compares, contrasts,
and forms them into a science ; that science is theology.
Now theological science, being thus the exercise of the
intellect upon the credenda of revelation, is, though not
directly devotional, at once natural, excellent, and neces-
sary. It is natural, because the intellect is one of our
highest faculties ; excellent, because it is our duty to use
our faculties to the full ; necessary, because unless we
apply our intellect to revealed truth rightly, others will
exercise their minds upon it wrongly. Accordingly, the
Catholic intellect makes a survey and a catalogue of the
doctrines contained in the depositum of revelation, as
committed to the Church's keeping ; it locates, adjusts,
defines them each, and brings them together into a
whole. Moreover, it takes particular aspects or portions
of them ; it analyzes them, whether into first principles
really such, or into hypotheses of an illustrative charac-
ter. It forms generalizations, and gives names to them.
All these deductions are true, if rightly deduced,
because they are deduced from what is true ; and there-
fore in one sense they are a portion of the depositum
of faith or credenda, while in another sense they are
additions to it : however, additions or not, they have,
I readily grant, the characteristic disadvantage of
being abstract and notional statements.
Nor is this all : the disavowal of error is far more
fruitful in additions than the enforcement of truth.
L 2
148 Appj'eJunsioii and Assent in Religion.
There is another set of deductions, inevitable also, and
also part or not part of the revealed credenda, according
as we please to view them. If a proposition is true,
its contradictory is false. If then a man believes that
Christ is God, he believes also, and that necessarily,
that to say He is not God is false, and that those who
so say are in error. Here then again the prospect
opens upon us of a countless multitude of propositions,
which in their first elements are close upon devotional
truth, — of groups of propositions, and those groups di-
vergent, independent, ever springing into life with an
inexhaustible fecundity, according to the ever-germinat-
ing forms of heresy, of which they are the antagonists.
These too have their place in theological science.
Such is theology in contrast to religion; and as follows
from the circumstances of its formation, though some of
its statements easily find equivalents in the language of
devotion, the greater number of them are more or less
unintelligible to the ordinary Catholic, as law-books to
the private citizen. And especially those portions of
theology which are the indirect creation, not of orthodox,
but of heretical thought, such as the repudiations of
error contained in the Canons of Councils, of which
specimens have been given above, will ever be foreign,
strange, and hard to the pious but uncontroversial mind;
for what have good Christians to do, in the ordinary
course of things, with the subtle hallucinations of the i
intellect ? This is manifest from the nature of the case ; *
but then the question recurs, why should the refutations
of heresy be our objects of faith ? if no mind, theolo-
gical or not, can believe what it cannot understand,
Belief in Dogmatic Theology, 149
in what sense can the Canons of Councils and other
ecclesiastical determinations be included in those cre-
denda which the Church presents to every Catholic as
if apprehensible, and to which every Catholic gives his
firm interior assent ?
In solving this difficulty I wish it first observed, that,
if it is the duty of the Church to act as " the pillar
and ground of the Truth,*' she is manifestly obliged
from time to time, and to the end of time, to denounce
opinions incompatible with that truth, whenever able
and subtle minds in her communion venture to publish
such opinions. Suppose certain Bishops and priests at
this day began to teach that Islamism or Buddhism was
a direct and immediate revelation from God, she would
be bound to use the authority which God has given her
to declare that such a proposition will not stand with
Christianity, and that those who hold it are none of
hers ; and she would be bound to impose such a declara-
tion on that very knot of persons who had committed
themselves to the novel proposition, in order that, if
they would not recant, they might be separated from
her communion, as they were separate from her faith.
In such a case, her masses of population would either
not hear of the controversy, or they would at once take
part with her, and without effort take any test, which
secured the exclusion of the innovators ; and she on the
other hand would feel that what is a rule for some Catho-
lics must be a rule for all. Who is to draw the line
between who are to acknowledge that rule, and who are
not ? It is plain, there cannot be two rules of faith in
the same communion, or rather, as the case really would
1 50 Apprehensio7i and Assent in Religion.
be^ an endless variety of rules, coming into force accord-
ing to the multiplication of heretical theories, and to
the degrees of knowledge and varieties of sentiment in
individual Catholics. There is but one rule of faith
for all ; and it would be a greater diflBculty to allow of
an uncertain rule of faith, than (if that was the alter-
native, as it is not), to impose upon uneducated minds
a profession which they cannot understand.
But it is not the necessary result of unity of profes-
sion, nor is it the fact, that the Church imposes dog-
matic statements on the interior assent of those who
cannot apprehend them. The diflficulty is removed
by the dogma of the Church's infallibility, and of the
consequent duty of " implicit faith " in her word. The
" One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church " is an
article of the Creed, and an article, which, inclusive of
her infallibility, all men, high and low, can easily
master and accept with a real and operative assent.
It stands in the place of all abstruse propositions in a
Catholic's mind, for to believe in her word is virtually
to believe in them all. Even what he cannot under-
stand, at least he can believe to be true; and he
believes it to be true because he believes in the
Church.
The rationale of this provision for unlearned devotion
is as follows : — It stands to reason that all of us, learned
and unlearned, are bound to believe the whole revealed
doctrine in all its parts and in all that it implies
according as portion after portion is brought home to
our consciousness as belonging to it ; and it also stands
to reason, that a doctrine, so deep and so various, as
Belief in Dogmatic Theology, 151
tlie revealed depositum of faitli, cannot be brought
home to us and made our own all at once. No mind,
however large, however penetrating, can directly and
fully by one act understand any one truth, however
simple. What can be more intelligible than that
'' Alexander conquered Asia," or that " Veracity is a
duty " ? but what a multitude of propositions is in-
cluded under either of these theses ! still, if we profess
either, we profess all that it includes. Thus, as regards
the Catholic Creed, if we really believe that our Lord
is God, we believe all that is meant by such a belief;
or, else, we are not in earnest, when we profess to
believe the proposition. In the act of believing it at
all, we forthwith commit ourselves by anticipation to
beheve truths which at present we do not believe,
because they have never come before us; — we limit
henceforth the range of our private judgment in pros-
pect by the conditions, whatever they are, of that
dogma. Thus the Arians said that they believed in
our Lord's divinity, but when they were pressed to
confess His eternity, they denied it : thereby showing
in fact that they never had believed in His divinity
at all. In other words, a man who really believes in
our Lord's proper divinity, beheves implicite in His
eternity.
And so, in like manner, of the whole depositum of
faith, or the revealed word : — If we believe in the
revelation, we believe in what is revealed, in all that is
revealed, however it may be brought home to us, by
reasoning or in any other way. He who believes that
Christ is the Truth, and that the Evangelists are truth-
152 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
ful, believes all that He has said through them, though
he has only read St. Matthew and has not read St.
John. He who believes in the depositum of Revela-
tion, believes in all the doctrines of the depositum ;
and since he cannot know them all at once, he knows
some doctrines, and does not know others ; he may
know only the Creed, nay, perhaps only the chief por-
tions of the Creed ; but, whether he knows little or
much, he has the intention of believing all that there
is to believe, whenever and as soon as it is brought
home to him, if he believes in Revelation at all. All
that he knows now as revealed, and all that he shall
know, and all that there is to know, he embraces it all
in his intention by one act of faith; otherwise, it is but
an accident that he believes this or that, not because
it is a revelation. This virtual, interpretative, or pros-
pective belief is called a believing vmplicite ; and it
follows from this, that, granting that the Canons of
Councils and the other ecclesiastical documents and con-
fessions, to which I have referred, are really involved
in the depositum, or revealed word, every Catholic, in
accepting the depositum, does implicUe accept those
dogmatic decisions.
I say, " granting these various propositions are vir-
tually contained in the revealed word,'' for this is the
only question left ; and that it is to be answered in the
aflBrmative, is clear at once to the Catholic, from the
fact that the Church declares that they really belong
to it. To her is committed the care and the interpre-
tation of the revelation. The word of the Church is
the word of the revelation. That the Church is the
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 153
infallible oracle of trutli is the fundamental dogma of
the Catholic religion ; and " I believe what the Church
proposes to be believed'' is an act of real assent,
including all particular assents, notional and real ; and,
while it is possible for unlearned as well as learned, it
is imperative on learned as well as unlearned. And
thus it is, that by believing the word of the Church
implicite, that is, by believing all that that word does
or shall declare itself to contain, every Catholic, accord-
ing to his intellectual capacity, supplements the short-
comings of his knowledge without blunting his real
assent to what is elementary, and takes upon himself
from the first the whole truth of revelation, progress-
ing from one apprehension of it to another according
to his opportunities of doing so.
PAET II.
ASSENT AND INFERENCE.
CHAPTER VI.
ASSENT CONSIDERED AS UNCONDITIONAL.
I HAVE now said as mucli as need be said about the
relation of Assent to Apprebension ; and shall turn to
the consideration of the relation existing between.
Assent and Inference.
As apprehension is a concomitant, so inference is
ordinarily the antecedent of assent ; — on this surely I
need not enlarge ; — but neither apprehension nor infer-
ence interferes with the unconditional character of the
assent, viewed in itself. The circumstances of an act,
however necessary to it, do not enter into the act ;
assent is in its nature absolute and unconditional,
though it cannot be given except under certain con-
ditions.
This is obvious ; but what presents some difficulty
is this, how it is that a conditional acceptance of a
proposition, — such as is an act of inference, — is able to
lead as it does, to an unconditional acceptance of it, —
such as is assent ; how it is that a proposition which is
not, and cannot be, demonstrated, which at the highest
can only be proved to be truth-like, not true, such as
158 Assent considered as Uficonditional.
"I shall die/' nevertheless claims and receives our
unqualified adhesion. To the consideration of this
paradox, as it may be called, I shall now proceed;
that is, to the consideration, first, of the act of assent
to a proposition, which act is unconditional ; next, of
the act of inference, which goes before the assent and
is conditional; and, thirdly, of the solution of the
apparent inconsistency which is involved in holding
that an unconditional acceptance of a proposition can
be the result of its conditional verification.
Simple Assent. 159
§ 1. Simple Assent.
The doctrine which I have been enunciating requires
such careful explanation^ that it is not wonderful that
writers of great ability and name are to be found who
have put it aside in favour of a doctrine of their own ; but
no doctrine on the subject is without its difficulties, and
certainly not theirs, though it carries with it a show of
common sense. The authors to whom I refer wish to
maintain that there are degrees of assent, and that, as
the reasons for a proposition are strong or weak, so is
the assent. It follows from this that absolute assent
has no legitimate exercise, except as ratifying acts of
intuition or demonstration. What is thus brought home
to us is indeed to be accepted unconditionally ; but, as
to reasonings in concrete matters, they are never more
than probabilities, and the probability in each conclu-
sion which we draw is the measure of our assent to that
conclusion. Thus assent becomes a sort of necessary
shadow, followinguponinference, which is the substance;
and is never without some alloy of doubt, because infer-
ence in the concrete never reaches more than probability.
Such is what may be called the a 'priori method of
regarding assent in its relation to inference. It con-
1 60 Assent considered as Unconditional.
demns an unconditional assent in concrete matters on
what may be called the nature of the case. Assent
cannot rise higher than its source ; inference in such
matters is at best conditional, therefore assent is con-
ditional also.
Abstract argument is always dangerous, and this
instance is no exception to the rule ; I prefer to go by
facts. The theory to which I have referred cannot be
carried out in practice. It may be rightly said to prove
too much ; for it debars us from unconditional assent
in cases in which the common voice of mankind, the
advocates of this theory included, would protest against
the prohibition. There are many truths in concrete
matter, which no one can demonstrate, yet every one
unconditionally accepts ; and though of course there
are innumerable propositions to which it would be absurd
to give an absolute assent, still the absurdity lies in the
circumstances of each particular case, as it is taken by
itself, not in their common violation of the pretentious
axiom that probable reasoningcan never lead to certitude.
Lockers remarks on the subject are an illustration of
what I have been saying. This celebrated writer, after
the manner of his school, speaks freely of degrees of
assent, and considers that the strength of assent given
to each proposition varies with the strength of the
inference on which the assent follows ; yet he is obliged
to make exceptions to his general principle, — excep-
tions, unintelligible on his abstract doctrine, but de-
manded by the logic of facts. The practice of mankind
is too strong for the antecedent theorem, to which he
is desirous to subject it.
Simple Assent. i6i
First lie says^ in his chapter " On Probability/'
'' Most of the propositions we think, reason, discourse,
nay, act upon, are such as we cannot have undoubted
knowledge of their truth ; yet some of them harder so
near upon certainty, that we malce no doubt at all about
them, but absent to them as firmly, and act according to
that assent as resolutely, as if they were infallibly
demonstrated, and that our knowledge of them was
perfect and certain/' Here he allows that inferences,
which are only " near upon certainty," are so near, that
we legitimately accept them with " no doubt at all,"
and " assent to them as firmly as if they were infallibly
demonstrated." That is, he affirms and sanctions the
very parodox to which I am committed myself.
Again; he says, in his chapter on "The Degrees of
Assent," that " when any particular thing, consonant to
the constant observation of ourselves and others in the
like case, comes attested by the concurrent reports of all
that mention it, we receive it as easily, and build as
firmly upon it, as if it were certain knowledge, and we
reason and act thereupon, with as little doubt asifitwere
^perfect demonstration." And he repeats, " These jpro'
habilities rise so near to certainty, that they govern our
thoughts as absolutely, and influence all our actions as
fully, as the most evident demonstration ; and in what
concerns us, we make little or no difference between
them and certain knowledge. Our belief thus grounded,
rises to assurance." Here again, " probabilities " may
be so strong as to " govern our thoughts as absolutely "
as sheer demonstration, so strong that belief, grounded
on them, " rises to assurance," that is, to certitude.
M
1 62 Assent considered as Unconditional.
I have so high a respect both for the character and
the ability of Locke, for his manly simplicity of mind
and his outspoken candour, and there is so much in his
remarks upon reasoning and proof in which I fully
concur, that I feel no pleasure in considering him in
the light of an opponent to views, which I myself have
ever cherished as true with an obstinate devotion; and
I would willingly think that in the passage which
follows in his chapter on " Enthusiasm," he is aiming at
superstitious extravagances which I should repudiate
myself as much as he can do ; but, if so, his words go
beyond the occasion, and contradict what I have quoted
from him above.
*'He that would seriously set upon the search of
truth, ought, in the first place, to prepare his mind
with a love of it. For he that loves it not will not
take much pains to get it, nor be much concerned
when he misses it. There is nobody, in the common-
wealth of learning, who does not profess himself a lover
of truth, — and there is not a rational creature, that
would not take it amiss, to be thought otherwise of.
And yet, for all this, one may truly say, there are very
few lovers of truth, for truth-sake, even amongst those
who persuade themselves that they are so. How a man
may know, whether he be so, in earnest, is worth
inquiry ; and I think, there is this one unerring mark of
it, viz. the note ntertaining any proposition with greater
assurance than tlie proofs it is huilt on will warrant.
Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain,
receives not truth in the love of it, loves not truth
for truth-sake, but for some other by-end. For the
Simple Assent. 1 6
o
evidence tliat any proposition is true {except such as
are self-evident) lying only in the proofs a man has
of it, whatsoever degrees of assent he affords it beyond
tlie degrees of that evidence, it is plain all that surplusage
of assurance is owing to some other affection, and not to
the love of truth ; it being as impossible that the love
of truth should carry my assent above the evidence there
is to me that it is true, as that the love of truth should
make me assent to any proposition for the sake of that
evidence which it has not that it is true ; which is in
effect to love it as a truth , because it is possible or pro-
bable that it may not be true.' "
Here he says that it is not only illogical, but immoral
to " carry our assent above the evidence that a proposition
is true," to have " a surplusage of assurance beyond the
degrees of that evidence." And he excepts from this rule
only self-evident propositions. How then is it not incon-
sistent with right reason, with the love of truth for its
own sake, to allow, in his words quoted above, certain
strong " probabilities " to " govern our thoughts as
absolutely as the most e\'ident demonstration " ? how
is there no '^surplusage of assurance beyond the degrees
of evidence " when in the case of those strong proba-
bilities, we permit " our belief, thus grounded, to rise to
assurance,^' as he pronounces we are rational in doing ?
Of course he had in view one set of instances, when he
implied that demonstration was the condition of absolute
assent, and another set when he said that it was no such
condition ; but he surely cannot be acquitted of slovenly
* Reference is made to Locke's statements in " Essay on Development
of Doctrine," ch. vii. § 2.
M 2
1 64 Asse?ii considered as Unconditional.
thinking in thus treating a cardinal subject. A philo-
sopher should so anticipate the application, and guard
the enunciation of his principles, as to secure them
against the risk of their being made to change places
with each other, to defend what he is eager to denounce,
and to condemn what he finds it necessary to sanction.
However, whatever is to be thought of his a priori
method and his logical consistency, his animus, I fear,
must be understood as hostile to the doctrine which I
am going to maintain. He takes a view of the human
mind, in relation to inference and assent, which to me
seems theoretical and unreal. Reasonings and convic-
tions which I deem natural and legitimate, he ap-
parently would call irrational, enthusiastic, perverse,
and immoral ; and that, as I think, because he consults
his own ideal of how the mind ought to act, instead of
interrogating human nature, as an existing thing, as it
is found in the world. Instead of going by the testi-
mony of psychological facts, and thereby determining
our constitutive faculties and our proper condition, and
being content with the mind as God has made' it, he
would form men as he thinks they ought to be formed,
into something better and higher, and calls them irra-
tional and indefensible, if (so to speak) they take to the
water, instead of remaining under the narrow wings of
his own arbitrary theory.
1 . Now the first question which this theory leads me
to consider is, whether there is such an act of the mind
as assent at all. If there is, it is plain it ought to show
itself unequivocally as such, as distinct from other acts.
For if a professed act can only be viewed as the neces-
SiiJip le A ssen t. 165
sary and immediate repetition of another act^ if assent is
a sort of reproduction and double of an act of inference,
if wben inference determines that a proposition is some-
what, or not a little, or a good deal, or very like truth,
assent as its natural and normal counterpart says that
it is somewhat, or not a little, or a good deal, or very
like truth, then I do not see what we mean by saying,
or why we say at all, that there is any such act. It is
simply superfluous, in a psychological point of view, and
a curiosity for subtle minds, and the sooner it is got out
of the w.ay the better. When I assent, I am supposed,
it seems, to do precisely what I do when I infer, or
rather not quite so much, but something which is
included in inferring; for, while the disposition of my
mind towards a given proposition is identical in assent
and in inference, I merely drop the thought of the pre-
misses when I assent, though not of their influence on
the proposition inferred. This, then, and no more after
all, is what nature prescribes ; and this, and no more
than this, is the conscientious use of our faculties, so to
assent forsooth as to do nothing else than infer. Then,
I say, if this be really the state of the case, if assent in
no real way differs from inference, it is one and the
same thing with it. It is another name for inference,
and to speak of it at all does but mislead. Nor can it
fairly be urged as a parallel case that an act of conscious
recognition, though distinct from an act of knowledge,
is after all only its repetition. On the contrary, such a
recognition is a reflex act with its own object, viz. the
act of knowledge itself. As well might it be said that
the hearing of the notes of my voice is a repetition of
1 66 Assent considered as Unconditional.
the act of singing : — it gives no plausibility then to the
anomaly I am combating.
I lay it down, then, as a principle that either assent
is intrinsically distinct from inference, or the sooner
we get rid of the word in philosophy the better. If
it be only the echo of an inference, do not treat it
as a substantive act ; but on the other hand, suppos-
ing it be not such an idle repetition, as I am sure
it is not, — supposing the word " assent " does hold a
rightful place in language and in thought, — if it does
not admit of being confused with concluding -and in-
ferring, — if the two words are used for two operations
of the intellect which cannot change their character, — if
in matter of fact they are not always found together, — if
they do not vary with each other, — if one is sometimes
found without the other, — ^if one is strong when the other
is weak, — if sometimes they seem even in conflict with
each other, — then, since we know perfectly well what an
inference is, it comes upon us to consider what, as dis-
tinct from inference, an assent is, and we are, by the
very fact of its being distinct, advanced one step
towards that account of it which I think is the true one.
The first step then towards deciding the point, will
be to inquire what the experience of human life, as it
is daily brought before us, teaches us of the relation to
each other of inference and assent.
(1.) First, we know from experience that assents may
endure without the presence of the inferential acts upon
which they were originally elicited. It is plain, that,
as life goes on, we are not only inwardly formed and
changed by the accession of habits, but we are also en-
Simple Assent. 167
riclied by a great multitude of beliefs and opinions, and
that on a variety of subjects. These beliefs and opinions,
held, as some of them are, almost as first principles, are
assents, and they constitute, as it were, the clothing and
furniture of the mind. I have already spoken of them
under the head of " Credence " and "^ Opinion .'' Some-
times we are fully conscious of them ; sometimes they
are implicit, or only now and then come directly before
our reflective faculty. Still they are assents; and, when
we first admitted them, we had some kind of reason,
slight or strong, recognized or not, for doing so. How-
ever, whatever those reasons were, even if we ever
realized them, we have long forgotten them. Whether
it was the authority of others, or our own observation,
or our reading, or our reflections, which became the
warrant of our assent, any how we received the matters
in question into our minds as true, and gave them a
place there. We assented to them, and we still assent,
though we have forgotten what the warrant was. At
present they are self-sustained in our minds, and have
been so for long years ; they are in no sense conclusions;
they imply no process of thought. Here then is a case
in which assent stands out as distinct from inference.
(2.) Again; sometimes assent fails, while the reasons
for it and the inferential act which is the recognition of
those reasons, are still present, and in force. Our rea-
sons may seem to us as strong as ever, yet they do not
secure our assent. Our beliefs, founded on them, were
and are not ; we cannot perhaps tell when they went ;
we may have thought that we still held them, till some-
thing happened to call our attention to the state of our
1 68 Assent considered as Unconditional.
minds, and tlien we found that our assent had become
an assertion. Sometimes, of course, a cause may be
found why they went; there may have been some vague
feeling that a fault lay at the ultimate basis, or in the
underlying conditions, of our reasonings ; or some mis-
giving that the subject-matter of them was beyond the
reach of the human mind ; or a consciousness that we
had gained a broader view of things in general than
when we first gave our assent ; or that there were strong
objections to our first convictions, which we had never
taken into account. But this is not always so ; some-
times our mind changes so quickly, so unaccountably, so
disproportionately to any tangible arguments to which
thejchange can be referred, and with such abiding recog-
nition of the force of the old arguments, as to suggest
the suspicion that moral causes, arising out of our con-
dition, age, company, occupations, fortunes, are at the
bottom. However, what once was assent is gone ; yet
the perception of the old arguments remains, showing
that inference is one thing, and assent another.
(3.) And as assent sometimes dies out without tan-
gible reasons, sufficient to account for its failure, so
sometimes, in spite of strong and convincing arguments,
it is never given. We sometimes find men loud in their
admiration of truths which they never profess. As, by
the law of our mental constitution, obedience is quite
distinct from faith, and men may believe without prac-
tising, so is assent also independent of our acts of in-
ference. Again, prejudice hinders assent to the most
incontrovertible proofs. Again, it not unfrequently
happens, that while the keenness of the ratiocinative
Simple Assent. 169
faculty enables a man to see the ultimate result of a
complicated problem in a moment^ it takes years for
bim to embrace it as a truth, and to recognize it as an
item in the circle of his knowledge. Yet he does at
last so accept it, and then we say that he assents.
(4.) Again ; very numerous are the cases, in which
good arguments, and really good as far as they go, and
confessed by us to be good, nevertheless are not strong
enough to incline our minds ever so little to the conclu-
sion at which they point. But why is it that we do not
assent a little, in proportion to those arguments ? On
the contrary, we throw the full onus probandi on the
side of the conclusion, and we refuse to assent to it at
all, until we can assent to it altogether. The proof is
capable of growth ; but the assent either exists or does
not exist.
(5.) I have already alluded to the influence of moral
motives in hindering assent to conclusions which are
logically unimpeachable. According to the couplet, —
" A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still;" —
assent then is not the same as inference.
(6.) Strange as it may seem, this contrast between
inference and assent is exemplified even in the province
of mathematics. Argument is not always able to com-
mand our Assent, even though it be demonstrative.
Sometimes of course it forces its way, that is, when the
steps of the reasoning are few, and admit of being
viewed by the mind altogether. Certainly, one cannot
conceive a man having before him the series of con-
ditions and truths on which it depends that the three
1 70 Assent considered as Unconditional.
angles of a triangle are together equal to two right
angles, and yet not assenting to that proposition. Were
all propositions as plain, though assent would not in
consequence be the same act as inference, yet it would
certainly follow immediately upon it. I allow then as
much as this, that, when an argument is in itself and
by itself conclusive of a truth, it has by a law of our
nature the same command over our assent, or rather the
truth which it has reached has the same command, as
our senses have. Certainly our intellectual nature is
under laws, and the correlative of ascertained truth is
unreserved assent.
But I am not speaking of short and lucid demonstra-
tions ; but of long and intricate mathematical investi-
gations ; and in that case, though every step may be
indisputable, it still requires a specially sustained atten-
tion and an effort of memory to have in the mind all at
once all the steps of the proof, with their bearings on
each other, and the antecedents which they severally
involve ; and these conditions of the inference may
interfere with the promptness of our assent.
Hence it is that party spirit or national feeling or
religious prepossessions have before now had power to
retard the reception of truths of a mathematical charac-
ter; which never could have been, if demonstrations
were i-pso facto assents. Nor indeed would any mathe-
matician, even in questions of pure science, assent to his
own conclusions, on new and difficult ground, and in the
case of abstruse calculations, however often he went over
his work, till he had the corroboration of other judgments
besides his own. He would have carefully revised his
Simple Assent. - 171
inference, and would assent to the probability of bis
accuracy in inferring, but still he would abstain from
an immediate assent to the truth of his conclusion. Yet
the corroboration of others cannot add to his perception
of the proof; he would still perceive the proof, even
though he failed in gaining their corroboration. And
yet again he might arbitrarily make it his rule, never
to assent to his conclusions without such corroboration,
or at least before, the lapse of a sufficient interval.
Here again inference is distinct from assent.
I have been showing that inference and assent are
distinct acts of the mind, and that they may be made
apart from each other. Of course I cannot be taken to
mean that there is no legitimate or actual connexion
between them, as if arguments adverse to a conclusion
did not naturally hinder assent ; or as if the inclination
to give assent were not greater or less according as the
particular act of inference expressed, a stronger or
weaker probability ; or as if assent did not always
imply grounds in reason, implicit, if not explicit, or
could be rightly given without sufficient grounds.
So much is it commonly felt that assent must be pre-
ceded by inferential acts, that obstinate men give their
own will as their very reason for assenting, if they can
think of nothing better ; " stat pro ratione voluntas."
Indeed, I doubt whether assent is ever given without
some preliminary, which stands for a reason ; but it
does not follow from this, that it may not be with-
held in cases when there are good reasons for giving
it tQ a proposition, or may not be withdrawn after
it has been given, the reasons remaining, or may
172 Assent considered as Unconditional.
not remain when the reasons are forgotten, or must
always vary in strength, as the reasons vary ; and
this substantiveness, as I may call it, of the act of
assent is the very point which I have wished to establish.
2. And in showing that assent is distinct from an act
of inference, I have gone a good way towards showing
in what it differs from it. If assent and inference are
each of them the acceptance of a proposition, but the
special characteristic of inference is that it is condi-
tional, it is natural to suppose that assent is uncon-
ditional. Again, if assent is the acceptance of truth,
and truth is the proper object of the intellect, and no
one can hold conditionally what by the same act he
holds to be true, here too is a reason for saying that
assent is an adhesion without reserve or doubt to the
proposition to which it is given. And again, it is to
be presumed that the word has not two meanings :
what it has at one time, it has at another. Inference
is always inference ; even if demonstrative, it is still
conditional ; it establishes an incontrovertible conclu-
sion on the condition of incontrovertible premisses.
To the conclusion thus drawn, assent gives its absolute
recognition. In the case of all demonstrations, assent,
when given, is unconditionally given. In one class of
subjects, then, assent certainly is always unconditional ;
but if the word stands for an undoubting and unhesi-
tating act of the mind once, why does it not denote
the same always ? what evidence is there that it ever
means any thing else than that which the whole world
will unite in witnessing that it means in certain cases?
why are we not to interpret what is controverted by
Simple Assent. 173
what is known ? This is what is suggested on the
first view of the question ; but to continue : —
In demonstrative matters assent excludes the pre-
sence of doubt : now are instances producible, on the
other hand, of its ever co-existing with doubt in cases
of the concrete ? As the above instances have shown,
on very many questions we do not give an assent at
all. What commonly happens is this, that, after hear-
ing and entering into what may be said for a proposi-
tion, we pronounce neither for nor against it. We may
accept the conclusion as a conclusion, dependent on
premisses, abstract, and tending to the concrete ; but
we do not follow up our inference of a proposition by
giving an assent to it. That there are concrete pro-
positions to which we give unconditional assents, I
shall presently show ; but I am now asking for instances
of conditional, for instances in which we assent a little
and not much. Usually, we do not assent at all.
Every day, as it comes, brings with it opportunities
for us to enlarge our circle of assents. We read the
newspapers ; we look through debates in Parliament,
pleadings in the law courts, leading articles, letters of
correspondents, reviews of books, criticisms in the fine
arts, and we either form no opinion at all upon the sub-
jects discussed, as lying out of our line, or at most we
have only an opinion about them. At the utmost we say
that we are inclined to believe this proposition or that,
that we are not sure it is not true, that much may be
said for it, that we have been much struck by it ; but we
never say that we give it a degree of assent. We might
as well talk of degrees of truth as of degrees of assent.
1 74 Assent considered as Unconditional.
Yet Locke heads one of his chapters with the title
" Degrees of Assent ; " and a writer, of this century,
who claims our respect from the tone and drift of his
work, thus expresses himself after Locke's manner :
" Moral evidence/' he says, " may produce a variety
of degrees of assents, from suspicion to moral certainty.
For here, the degree of assent depends upon the degree
in which the evidence on one side prepondei*ates, or
exceeds that on the other. And as this preponderancy
may vary almost infinitely, so likewise may the degrees
of assent. For a few of these degrees, though but for a
few, names have been invented. Thus, when the evi-
dence on one side preponderates a very little, there is
ground for suspicion, or conjecture. Presumption, per-
suasion, belief, conclusion, conviction, moral certainty,
— doubt, wavering, distrust, disbelief, — are words
which imply an increase or decrease of this preponder-
ancy. Some of these words also admit of epithets
which denote a further increase or diminution of the
assent."'
Can there be a better illustration than this passage
supplies of what I have been insisting on above, viz.
that, in teaching various degrees of assent, we tend to
destroy assent, as an act of the mind, altogether ? This
author makes the degrees of assent " infinite,'' as the
degrees of probability are infinite. His assents are
really only inferences, and assent is a name without
a meaning, the needless repetition of an inference. But
in truth " suspicion, conjecture, presumption, per-
* Gambier on Moral Evidence, p. 6.
Si7nple Assent. 1 75
suasion, belief, conclusion, conviction, moral certainty,"
are not " assents " at all ; they are simply more or less
strong inferences of a proposition ; and '^ doubt, waver-
ing distrust, disbelief,'^ are recognitions, more or less
strong, of the probability of its contradictory.
There is only one sense in which we are allowed to
call such acts or states of mind assents. They are
opinions ; and, as being such, they are, as I have already
observed, when speaking of Opinion, assents to the
plausibility, probability, doubtfulness, or untrustworthi-
ness, of a proposition ; that is, not variations of assent
to an inference, but assents to a variation in inferences.
When I assent to a doubtfulness, or to a probability,
my assent, as such, is as complete as if I assented to a
truth ; it is not a certain degree of assent. And, in
like manner, I may be certain of an uncertainty ; that
does not destroy the specific notion convened in the
word " certain.^'
I do not know then when it is that we ever delibe-
rately profess assent to a proposition without meaning
to convey to others the impression that we accept it
unreservedly, and that because it is true. Certainly,
we familiarly use such phrases as a half-assent, as we
also speak of half-truths; but a half-assent is not a
kind of assent any more than a half-truth is a kind of
truth. As the object is indivisible, so is the act. A
half-truth is a proposition which in one aspect is a
truth, and in another is not ; to give a half-assent is to
feel drawn towards assent, or to assent one moment and
not the next, or to be in the way to assent to it. It
means that the proposition in question deserves a hear-
176 Assent considered as Unco7iditional.
ing, that it is probable, or attractive, that it opens
important views, that it is a key to perplexing diflGi-
culties, or the like.
3. Treating the subject then, not according to a priori
fitness, but according to the facts of human nature, as
they are found in the concrete action of life, I find
numberless cases in which we do not assent at all, none
in which assent is evidently conditional ; — and many,
as I shall now proceed to show, in which it is uncon-
ditional, and these in subject-matters which admit of
nothing higher than probable reasoning. If human
nature is to be its own witness, there is no medium
between assenting and not assenting. Locke's theory
of the duty of assenting more or less according to
degrees of evidence, is invalidated by the testimony of
high and low, young and old, ancient and modern, as
continually given in their ordinary sayings and doings.
Indeed, as I have shown, he does not strictly maintain
it himself; yet, though he feels the claims of nature
and fact to be too strong for him in certain cases, he
gives no reason why he should violate his theory in
these, and yet not in many more.
Now let us review some of those assents, which men
give on evidence short of intuition and demonstration,
yet which are as unconditional as if they had that
highest evidence.
First of all, starting from intuition, of course we all
believe, without any doubt, that we exist ; that we have
an individuality and identity all our own ; that we think,
feel, and act, in the home of our own minds ; that we
have a present sense of good and evil, of a right and a
Simple Assent. 177
wrong, of a true and a false, of a beautiful and a hideous,
however we analyze our ideas of them. We have an
absolute vision before us of what happened yesterday
or last year, so as to be able without any chance of
mistake to give evidence upon it in a court of justice,
let the consequences be ever so serious. We are sure
that of many things we are ignorant, that of many
things we are in doubt, and that of many things we
are not in doubt.
Nor is the assent which we give to facts limited to
the range of self-consciousness. We are sure beyond
all hazard of a mistake, that our own self is not
the only being existing ; that there is an external
world ; that it is a system with parts and a whole, a
universe carried on by laws; and that the future is
affected by the past. We accept and hold with an
unqualified assent, that the earth, considered as a phe-
nomenon, is a globe; that all its regions see the
sun by turns ; that there are vast tracts on it of
land and water; that there are really existing cities
on definite sites, which go by the names of London,
Paris, Florence, and Madrid. We are sure that Paris
or London, unless suddenly swallowed up by an earth-
quake or burned to the ground, is to-day just what it
was yesterday, when we left it.
We laugh to scorn the idea that we had no parents,
though we have no memory of our birth ; that we shall
never depart this life, though we can have no experience
of the future ; that we are able to live without food,
though we have never tried ; that a world of men did
not live before our time, or that that world has had no
N
1 78 Assent considered as Unconditional.
history ; that there has been no rise and fall of states,
no great men, no wars, no revolutions, no art, no
science, no literature, no religion.
We should be either indignant or amused at the re-
port of our intimate friend being false to us ; and we are
able sometimes, without any hesitation, to accuse cer-
tain parties of hostility and injustice to us. We may
have a deep consciousness, which we never can lose,
that we on our part have been cruel to others, and
that they have felt us to be so, or that we have been,
and have been felt to be, ungenerous to those who love
us. We may have an overpowering sense of our moral
weakness, of the precariousness of our life, health,
wealth, position, and good fortune. We may have a
clear view of the weak points of our physical constitu-
tion, of what food or medicine is good for us, and what
does us harm. We may be able to master, at least in
part, the course of our past history ; its turning-points,
our hits, and our great mistakes. We may have a sense
of the presence of a Supreme Being, which never has
been dimmed by even a passing shadow, which has in-
habited us ever since we can recollect any thing, and
which we cannot imagine our losing. We may be able,
for others have been able, so to realize the precepts and
truths of Christianity, as deliberately to surrender our
life, rather than transgress the one or to deny the other.
On all these truths we hftve an immediate and an
unhesitating hold, nor do we think ourselves guilty of
not loving truth for truth's sake, because we cannot
reach them through a series of intuitive propositions.
Assent on reasonings not demonstrative is too widely
Simple Assent. 1 79
recognized an act to be irrational, unless man^s nature
is irrational, too familiar to the prudent and clear-minded
to be an infirmity or an extravagance. None of us can
think or act without the acceptance of truths, not in-
tuitive, not demonstrated, yet sovereign. If our nature
has any constitution, any laws, one of them is this ab-
solute reception of propositions as true, which lie outside
the narrow range of conclusions to which logic, formal
or virtual, is tethered ; nor has any philosophical theory
the power to force on us a rule which will not work
for a day.
When, then, philosophers lay down principles, on
which it follows that our assent, except when given to
objects of intuition or demonstration, is conditional, that
the assent given to propositions by well-ordered minds
necessarily varies with the proof producible for them,
and that it does not and cannot remain one and the
same while the proof is strengthened or weakened, —
are they not to be considered as confusing together two
things very distinct from each other, a mental act or
state and a scientific rule, an interior assent and a set of
logical formulas ? When they speak of degrees of assent,
surely they have no intention at all of defining the posi-
tion of the mind itself relative to the adoption of a given
conclusion, but they are recording their perception of the
relation of that conclusion towards its premisses. They
are contemplating bow representative symbols work, not
how the intellect is affected towards the thing which those
symbols represent. In real truth they as little mean
to assert the principle of measuring our assents by our
logic, as they would fancy they could record the refresh-
N 2
I So Assent considered as Unconditional.
ment which we receive from the open air by the readings
©f the graduated scale of a thermometer. There is a
connexion doubtless between a logical conclusion and
an assent, as there is between the variation of the
mercury and our sensations ; but the mercury is not the
cause of life and health, nor is verbal argumentation the
principle of inward belief. If we feel hot or chilly, no one
will convince us to the contrary by insisting that the
glass is at 60°. It is the mind that reasons and assents,
not a diagram on paper. I may have difficulty in the
management of a proof, while I remain unshaken in my
adherence to the conclusion. Supposing a boy cannot
make his answer to some arithmetical or algebraical
question tally with the book, need he at once distrust
the book? Does his trust in it fall down a certain
number of degrees, according to the force of his diffi-
culty ? On the contrary he keeps to the principle, im-
pHcit but present to his mind, with which he took up
the book, that the book is more likely to be right than
he is ; and this mere preponderance of probability is
sufficient to make him faithful to his belief in its
correctness, till its incorrectness is actually proved.
My own opinion is, that the class of writers of whom
I have been speaking, have themselves as little mis-
giving about the truths which they pretend to weigh
out and measure, as their unsophisticated neighbours ;
but they think it a duty to remind us, that since the full
etiquette of logical requirements has not been satisfied,
we must believe those truths at our peril. They warn
us, that an issue which can never come to pass in matter
of fact, is nevertheless in theory a possible supposition.
Simple Assent. 1 8 1
They do not, for instance, intend for a moment to imply-
that there is even the shadow of a doubt that Great
Britain is an island, but they think we ought to know,
if we do not know, that there is no proof of the fact, in
mode and figure, equal to the proof of a proposition of
Euclid ; and that in consequence they and we are all
bound to suspend our judgment about such a fact,
though it be in an infinitesimal degree, lest we should
seem not to love truth for trutVs sake. Having made
their protest, they subside without scruple into that same
absolute assurance of only partially-proved truths, which
is natural to the illogical imagination of the multitude.
4. It remains to explain some conversational ex-
pressions, at first sight favourable to that doctrine of
degrees in assent, which I have been combating.
(1.) We often speak of giving a modified and quali-
fied, or a presumptive and 'prima facie assent, or (as I
have already said) a half-assent to opinions or facts ;
but these expressions admit of an easy explanation.
Assent, upon the authority of others is often, as I have
noticed, when speaking of notional assents, little more
than a profession or acquiescence or inference, not a real
acceptance of a proposition. I report, for instance, that
there was a serious fire in the town in the past night ;
and then perhaps I add, that at least the morning
papers say so; — that is, I have perhaps no positive doubt
of the fact ; still, by referring to the newspapers I imply
that I do not take on myself the responsibility of the
statement. In thus qualifying my apparent assent, I
show that it was not a genuine assent at all. In like
manner a, prima facie assent is an assent to an ante-
1 82 Assent considered as U biconditional.
cedent probability of a fact, not to the fact itself; as I
might give o^primd facie assent to the Plurality of worlds
or to the personality of Homer, without pledging myself
to either absolutely. " Half-assent/' of which I spoke
above, is an inclination to assent, or again, an intention
of assenting, when certain diflBculties are surmounted.
"When we speak without thought, assent has as vague a
meaning as half-assent ; but when we deliberately say,
" I assent,'' we signify an act of the mind so definite,
as to admit of no change but that of its ceasing to be.
(2.) And so, too, though we sometimes use the phrase
'* conditional assent," yet we only mean thereby to say
that we will assent under certain contingencies. Of
course we may, if we please, include a condition in the
proposition to which our assent is given ; and then,
that condition enters into the matter of the assent, but
not into the assent itself. To assent to — " If this man
is in a consumption, his days are numbered," — is as
little a conditional assent, as to assent to — " Of this
consumptive patient the days are numbered," — which,
(though without the conditional form,) is an equivalent
proposition. In such cases, strictly speaking, the
assent is given neither to antecedent nor consequent
of the conditional proposition, but to their connexion,
that is, to the enthymematic inferentia. If we place
the condition external to the proposition, then the
assent will be given to ''That ' his days are numbered '
is conditionally true ;" and of course we can assent to
the conditionality of a proposition as well as to its pro-
bability. Or again, if so be, we may give our assent
not only to the inferentia in a complex conditional pro-
Simple Assent. 183
position, but to each of the simple propositions, of
which it is made up, besides. " There will be a storm
soon, for the mercury falls /^ — here, besides assenting
to the connexion of the propositions, we may assent
also to " The mercury falls/^ and to " There will be a
storm/' This is assenting to the premiss, inferentia,
and thing inferred, all at once ; — we assent to the
whole syllogism, and to its component parts.
(3.) In like manner are to be explained the phrases,*
" deliberate assent,^^ a "rational assent;" a " sudden,"
" impulsive,'" or " hesitating " assent. These expres-
sions denote, not kinds or qualities, but the circum-
stances of assenting. A dehberate assent is an assent
following upon deliberation. It is sometimes called a
conviction, a word which commonly includes in its
meaning two acts, both the act of inference, and the
act of assent consequent upon the inference. This sub-
ject will be considered in the next Section. On the
other hand, a hesitating assent is an assent to which
we have been slow and intermittent in coming ; or an
assent which, when given, is thwarted and obscured
by external and flitting misgivings, though not such as
to enter into the act itself, or essentially to damage it.
There is another sense in which we speak of a hesi-
tating or uncertain assent ; viz. when we assent in act,
but not in the habit of our minds. Till assent to a
doctrine or fact is my habit, I am at the mercy of
inferences contrary to it ; I assent to-day, and give up
my belief, or incline to disbelief, to-morrow. I may
find it my duty, for instance, after the opportunity of
careful inquiry and inference, to assent to another's
184 Assent considered as Unconditio7ial.
innocence, whom I liave for years considered guilty ;
but from long prejudice I may be unable to carry my
new assent well about me, and may every now and then
relapse into momentary tboughts injurious to him.
(4.) A more plausible objection to the absolute absence
of all doubt or misgiving in an act of assent is found in
the use of the terms firm and weak assent, or in the
growth of belief and trust. Thus, we assent to the
' events of history, but not with that fulness and force
of adherence to the received account of them with which
we realize a record of occurrences which are within our
own memory. And again, we assent to the praise be-
stowed on a friend's good qualities with an energy which
we do not feel, when we are speaking of virtue in the
abstract : and if we are political partisans, our assent is
very cold, when we cannot refuse it, to representations
made in favour of the wisdom or patriotism of states-
men whom we dislike. And then as to religious sub-
jects we speak of " strong " faith and " feeble " faith ;
of the faith which would move mountains, and of the
ordinary faith ^' without which it is impossible to please
God.'' And as we can grow in graces, so surely can
we inclusively in faith. Again we rise from one work
on Christian Evidences with our faith enlivened and in-
vigorated; from another perhaps with the distracted
father's words in our mouth, "I believe, help my un-
belief."
Now it is evident, first of all, that habits of mind may
grow, as being a something permanent and continuous ;
and by assent growing, it is often only meant that the
habit grows and has greater hold upon the mind.
Simple Assent. 185
But agairij when we carefully consider the matter, it
will be found that this increase or decrease of strength
does not lie in the assent itself, but in its circumstances
and concomitants ; for instance, in the emotions, in the
ratiocinative faculty, or in the imagination.
For instance, as to the emotions, this strength of
assent may be nothing more than the strength of love,
hatred, interest, desire, or fear, which the object of the
assent elicits, and this is especially the case when that
object is of a religious nature. Such strength is adven-
titious and accidental ; it may come, it may go ; it is
found in one man, not in another ; it does not interfere
with the genuineness and perfection of the act of assent.
Balaam assented to the fact of his own intercourse with
the supernatural, as well as Moses ; but, to use religious
language, he had light without love ; his intellect was
clear, his heart was cold. Hence his faith would popu-
larly be considered wanting in strength. On the other
hand, prejudice implies strong assents to the disad-
vantage of its object; that is, it encourages such assents,
and guards them from the chance of being lost.
Again, when a conclusion is recommended to us by
the number and force of the arguments in proof of it,
our recognition of them invests it with a luminousness,
which in one sense adds strength to our assent to it,
as it certainly does protect and embolden that assent.
Thus we assent to a review of recent events, which we
have studied from original documents, with a trium-
phant peremptoriness which it neither occurs to us, nor
is possible for us, to exercise, when we make an act of
assent to the assassination of Julius Caesar, or to the
1 86 Assent considered as Unconditional.
existence of the Abipones, though we are as securely
certain of these latter facts as of the doings and occur-
rences of yesterday.
And further, all that I have said about the appre-
hension of propositions is in point here. We may
speak of assent to our Lord's divinity as strong or
feeble, according as it is given to the reality as im-
pressed upon the imagination, or to the notion of it as
entertained by the intellect.
(5.) Nor, lastly, does this doctrine of the intrinsic
integrity and indivisibility (if I may so speak) of
assent interfere with the teaching of Catholic theology
as to the pre-eminence of strength in divine faith,
which has a supernatural origin, when compared with
all belief which is merely human and natural. For first,
that pre-eminence consists, not in its differing from
human faith, merely in degree of assent, but in its being
superior in nature and kind ^, so that the one does not
admit of a comparison with the other; and next, its
intrinsic superiority is not a matter of experience, but
is above experience ■•. Assent is ever assent * ; but in
* " Supernaturalis mentis assensus, rebus fidei exhibitus, ciim pra3cipu^
dependeat & gratis Dei intrinsecus inentem illuminante et commovente,
potest esse, et est, major quocunque assensu certitudini natural! prajstito,
sen ex motivis naturalibus orto," &c. — Dmouski, Instit. t. i. p. 28.
* "Hoc [viz. multo certior est borao de eo quod audit i Deo qui falli non
potest, quiin de eo quod videt propria ratione qua falli potest] intelli-
gendum est de certitudine fidei secundum appretiationem, non secundum
iutentionem j nam sajpe contingit, ut scientia clarius percipiatur ab iu-
tellectu, atque ut connexio scientias cum veritate magis appareat, quiin
connexio fidei cum efldem ; cognitiones enim naturales, utpote captvii
nostro accommodatre, magis animum auietant, delectant, et veluti
satiant." — Scaviiii, Tbeol. Moral, t. ii. p. 428.
* " Suppono enim, veritatem fidei non esse certiorem veritate metn-
Simple Assent. 1 8 7
the assent wliicli follows on a divine announcement,
and is vivified by a divine grace, there is, from the
nature of the case, a transcendant adhesion of mind,
intellectual and moral, and a special self-protection,®
beyond the operation of those ordinary laws of thought,
which alone have a place in my discussion.
physica aut geometrica quoad modum assensionis, sed tantum quoad
modum ndhsBsionis; quia utrinque intellectus absolute sine mode limi-
tante assentitur. Sola autem adbeesio voluntatis diversa est; quia in
actu fidei gratia seu habitus infusus roborat intellectum et voluntatem,
ne tam facile mutentur aut perturbentur." — Amort, Theol, t. i. p. 312.
" HsBC distinctio certitudinis [ex diversitate motivorum] extrinsecam
tantum differentiam importat, cum omnis naturalis certitudo, formaliter
spectata, sit a>qualis ; debet enim essentialiter en-oris periculum amovere,
exclusio autem periculi erroris in indivisibili consistit j aut enim habetur
aut non habetur." — Dmouski, ibid. p. 27.
" " Fides est certior omni veritate naturali, etiam geometric^ aut meta-
physics certa ; idque non solum certitudine adhsesionis sed etiam assen-
tionis. . . . Intellectus sentit se in multis veritatibus etiam metaphysice
certis posse per objectiones perturbari, e. g. si legat scepticos. , . . E
contra circa ea, quee constat esse revelata ^ Deo, uuUus potest perturbari."
— Amort, ibid. p. 867.
1 88 Assent considered as Unconditio7ial.
§ 2. Complex Assent.
I HAVE been considering assent as the mental assertion
of an intelligible proposition, as an act of the intellect
direct, absolute, complete in itself, unconditional, arbi-
trary, yet not incompatible with an appeal to argument,
and at least in many cases exercised unconsciously. On
this last characteristic of assent I have not insisted, as
it has not come in my way ; nor is it more than an
accident of acts of assent, though an ordinary accident.
That it is of ordinary occurrence cannot be doubted.
A great many of our assents are merely expressions of
our personal likings, tastes, principles, motives, and
opinions, as dictated by nature, or resulting from habit;
in other words, they are acts and manifestations of self:
now what is more rare than self-knowledge ? In pro-
portion then to our ignorance of self, is our unconscious-
ness of those innumerable acts of assent, which we are
incessantly making. And so again in what may be
almost called the mechanical operation of our minds,
in our continual acts of apprehension and inference,
speculation, and resolve, propositions pass before us and
receive our assent without our consciousness. Hence it
is that we are so apt to confuse together acts of assent
Complex Assent. 189
and acts of inference. Indeed, I may fairly say, that
those assents which we give with a direct knowledge of
what we are doing, are few compared with the multitude
of like acts which pass through our minds in long
succession without our observing them.
That mode of Assent which is exercised thus uncon-
sciously, I may call simple assent, and of it I have treated
in the foregoing Section ; but now I am going to speak
of such assents as must be made consciously and de-
liberately, and which I shall call complex or reflex
assents. And I begin by recalling what I have already
stated about the relation in which Assent and Inference
stand to each other, — Inference, which holds proposi-
tions conditionally, and Assent, which unconditionally
accepts them ; the relation is this : —
Acts of Inference are both the antecedents of assent
before assenting, and its usual concomitants after assent-
ing. For instance, I hold absolutely that the country
which we call India exists, upon trustworthy testimony ;
and next, I may continue to believe it on the same
testimony. In like manner, I have ever believed that
Great Britain is an island, for certain sufficient reasons ;
and on the same reasons I may persist in the belief.
But it may happen that I forget my reasons for what I
believe to be so absolutely true ; or I may never have
asked myself about them, or formally marshalled them
in order, and have been accustomed to assent without a
recognition of my assent or of its grounds, and then
perhaps something occurs which leads to my reviewing
and completing those grounds, analyzing and arranging
them, yet without on that account implying of necessity
1 90 Assent considered as Unconditional.
any suspense, ever so slight, of assent, to the proposition
that India is in a certain part of the earth, and that
Great Britain is an island. With no suspense of assent at
all ; any more than the boy in my former illustration
had any doubt about the answer set down in his arith-
metic-book, when he began working out the question ;
any more than he would be doubting his eyes and his
common sense, that the two sides of a triangle are to-
gether greater than the third, because he drew out the
geometrical proof of it. He does but repeat, after his
formal demonstration, that assent which he made before
it, and assents to his previous assenting. This is what
I call a reflex or complex assent.
I say, there is no necessary incompatibility between
thus assenting and yet pi'oving, — for the conclusiveness
of a proposition is not synonymous with its truth. A
proposition may be true, yet not admit of being con-
duded; — it may be a conclusion and yet not a truth.
To contemplate it under one aspect, is not to contem-
plate it under another j and the two aspects may be
consistent, from the very fact that they are two aspects.
Therefore to set about concluding a proposition is not
ipso facto to doubt its truth ; we may aim at inferring
a proposition, while all the time we assent to it. AN
have to do this as a common occurrence, when we taku
on ourselves to convince another on any point in which
he diflfers from us. We do not deny our own faith,
because we become controversialists; and in like manner
we may employ ourselves in proving what we already
believe to be true, simply in order to ascertain the pro-
ducible evidence in its favour, and in order to fulfil
^i
Complex A sse^it, 191
what is due to ourselves and to the claims and responsi-
bilities of our education and social position.
I have been speaking of investigation, not of inquiry;
it is quite true that inquiry is inconsistent with assent,
but inquiry is something more than the mere exercise of
inference. He who inquires has not found; he is in
doubt where the truth lies, and wishes hds present pro-
fession either proved or disproved. "We cannot without
absurdity call ourselves at once believers and inquirers
also. Thus it is sometimes spoken of as a hardship that
a Catholic is not allowed to inquire into the truth of
his Creed; — of course he cannot, if he would retain the
name of believer. He cannot be both inside and outside
of the Church at once. It is merely common sense to
tell him that, if he is seeking, he has not found. If
seeking includes doubting, and doubting excludes be-
lieving, then the Catholic who sets about inquiring,
thereby declares that he is not a CathoKc. He has
already lost faith. And this is his best defence to him-
self for inquiring, viz. that he is no longer a Catholic,
and wishes to become one. They who would forbid him
to inquire, would in that case be shutting the stable-
door after the steed is stolen. What can he do better
than inquire, if he is in doubt ? how else can he become
a Catholic again ? Not to inquire is in his case to be
satisfied with disbelief
However, in thus speaking, I am viewing the matter
in the abstract, and without allowing for the manifold
inconsistencies of individuals, as they are found in the
world, who attempt to unite incompatibilities ; who do
not doubt, but who act as if they did ; who, though they
192 Assent considered as Unconditional.
believe, are weak in faith, and put themselves in the
way of losing it by unnecessarily listening to objections.
Moreover, there are minds, undoubtedly, with whom at
all times to question a truth is to make it questionable,
and to investigate is equivalent to inquiring ; and again,
there may be beliefs so sacred or so delicate, that, if I
may use the metaphor,, they will not wash without
shrinking and losing colour. I grant all this ; but here
I am discussing broad principles, not individual cases ;
and these principles are, that inquiry implies doubt, and
that investigation does not imply it, and that those who
assent to a doctrine or fact may without inconsistency
investigate its credibility, though they cannot Uterally
inquire about its truth.
Next, T consider that, in the case of educated minds,
investigations into the argumentative proof of the things
to which they have given their assent, is an obligation,
or rather a necessity. Such a trial of their intellects is
a law of their nature, like the growth of childhood into
manhood, and analogous to the moral ordeal which is
the instrument of their spiritual life. The lessons of
right and wrong, which are taught them at school, are
to be carried out into action amid the good and evil of
the world ; and so again the intellectual assents, in
which they have in like manner been instructed from the
first, have to be tested, realized, and developed by the
exercise of their mature judgment.
Certainly, such processes of investigation, whether in
religious subjects or secular, often issue in the reversal
of the assents which they were originally intended to
confirm; as the boy who works out an arithmetical
Complex Assent. 193
problem from his book may end in detecting, or think-
ing he detects, a false print in the answer. But the
question before us is whether acts of assent and of
inference are compatible ; and my vague consciousness
of the possibility of a reversal of my belief in the course
of my researches, as little interferes with the honesty
and firmness of that belief while those researches pro-
ceed, as the recognition of the possibility of my train's
oversetting is an evidence of an intention on my part
of undergoing so great a calamity. My mind is not
moved by a scientific computation of chances, nor can
any law of averages affect my particular case. To incur
a risk is not to expect reverse; and if my opinions are
true, I have a right to think that they will bear exa-
mining. Nor, on the other hand, does belief, viewed in
its idea, imply a positive resolution in the party believing
never to abandon that belief. What belief, as such,
does imply is, not an intention never to change, but the
utter absence of all thought, or expectation, or fear of
changing. A spontaneous resolution never to change
is inconsistent with the idea of belief ; for the very force
and absoluteness of the act of assent precludes any such
resolution. We do not commonly determine not to do
what we cannot fancy ourselves ever doing. We should
readily indeed make such a formal promise if we were
called upon to do so ; for, since we have the truth, and
truth cannot change, how can we possibly change in our
belief, except indeed through our own weakness or
fickleness ? We have no intention whatever of being
weak or fickle ; so our promise is but the natural
guarantee of our sincerity. It is possible then, without
1 94 Assent considered as Unconditional.
disloyalty to our convictions, to examine their grounds,
even though in the event they are to fail under the
examination, for we have no suspicion of this failure.
And such examination, as I have said, does but fulfil
a law of our nature. Our first assents, right or wrong,
are often little more than prejudices. The reasonings,
which precede and accompany them, though sufficient
for their purpose, do not rise up to the importance and
energy of the assents themselves. As time goes on, by
degrees and without set purpose, by reflection and expe-
rience, we begin to confirm or to correct the notions and
the images to which those assents are given. At times
it is a necessity formally to undertake a survey and revi-
sion of this or that class of them, of those which relate
to religion, or to social duty, or to politics, or to the
conduct of life. Sometimes this review begins in doubt
as to the matters which we propose to consider, that is,
in a suspension of the assents hitherto familiar to us ;
sometimes those assents are too strong to allow of being
lost on the first stirring of the inquisitive intellect, and
if, as time goes on, they give way, our change of mind,
be it for good or for evil, is owing to the accumulating
force of the arguments, sound or unsound, which bear
down upon the propositions which we have hitherto
received. Objections, indeed, as such, have no direct
force to weaken assent ; but, when they multiply, they
tell against the implicit reasonings or the formal infer-
ences which are its warrant, and suspend its acts and
gradually undermine its habit. Then the assent goes;
but whether slowly or suddenly, noticeably or impercep-
tibly, ia a matter of circumstance or accident. How-
Complex Assent. 195
ever^ whether the original assent is continued on or not,
the new assent differs from the old in this, that it has
the strength of explicitness and deliberation, that it is
not a mere prejudice, and its strength the strength of
prejudice. It is an assent, not only to a given proposi-
tion, but to the claim of that proposition on our assent
as true ; it is an assent to an assent, or what is com-
monly called a conviction.
Of course these reflex acts may be repeated in a series,
As I pronounce that "Great Britain is an island,^^ and
then pronounce " That ' Great Britain is an island ' has
a claim on my assent," or is to "■ be assented-to," or to
be " accepted as true," or to be " believed," or simply
" is true " (these predicates being equivalent), so I may
proceed, '' The proposition ' that Great-Britain-is-an-
island ia to be believed^ is to be believed,''^ &c., &c., and
so on to ad infinitum. But this would be trifling. The
mind is like a double mirror, in which reflexions of self
within self multiply themselves till they are undistin-
guishable, and the first reflexion contains all the rest.
At the same time, it is worth while to notice two other
reflex propositions : — " That ' Great Britain is an island '
is probable " is true ; — and " That ' Great Britain is an
island ' is uncertain " is true : — for the former of these
is the expression of Opinion, and the latter of formal
or theological Doubt, as I have already determined.
I have one step farther to make — let the proposition
to which the assent is given be as absolutely true as the
reflex act pronounces it to be, that is, objectively true as
well as subjectively : — then the assent may be called a
2
196 A s sent considered as U biconditional,
perception, the conviction a certitude, the proposition or
truth a certainty, or thing known, or a matter of know-
ledge, and to assent to it is to know.
Of course, in thus speaking, I open the all-important
question, what is truth, and what apparent truth ? what
is genuine knowledge, and what is its counterfeit ? what
are the tests for discriminating certitude from mere
persuasion or delusion ? Whatever a man holds to be
true, he will say he holds for certain; and for the
present I must allow him in his assumption, hoping in
one way or another, as I proceed, to lessen the difficul-
ties which lie in the way of calling him to account for
so doing. And I have the less scruple in taking this
course, as believing that, among fairly prudent and
circumspect men, there are far fewer instances of false
certitude than at first sight might be supposed. Men
are often doubtful about propositions which are really
true ; they are not commonly certain of such as are
simply false. What they judge to be a certainty is in
matter of fact for the most part a truth. Not that
there is not a great deal of rash talking even among the
educated portion of the community, and many a man
makes professions of certitude, for which he has no
warrant ; but that such off-hand, confident language is
no token how these persons will express themselves when
brought to book. No one will with justice consider
himself certain of any matter, unless he has sufficient
reasons for so considering; and it is rare that what is
not true should be so free from every circumstance and
token of falsity as to create no suspicion in his mind to
its disadvantage, no reason for suspense of judgment.
Complex Assent. 197
However, I stall have to remark on this difficulty by
and by ; here I will mention two conditions of certitude,
in close connexion with that necessary preliminary of
investigation and proof of which I have been speaking,
which will throw some light upon it. The one, which
is a priori, or from the nature of the case, will tell us
what is not certitude ; the other, which is a posteriori,
or from experience, will tell us in a measure what
certitude is.
Certitude, as I have said, is the perception of a
truth with the perception that it is a truth, or the con-
sciousness of knowing, as expressed in the phrase, " I
know that I know,'" or " I know that I know that I
know,^' — or simply "I know;^^ for one reflex assertion of
the mind about self sums up the series of self-conscious-
nesses without the need of any actual evolution of them.
1. But if so, if by certitude about a thing is to
be understood the knowledge of its truth, let it
be considered that what is once true is always true,
and cannot fail, whereas what is once known need
not always be known, and is capable of failing. It
follows, that if I am certain of a thing, I believe it
will remain what I now hold it to be, even though
my mind should have the bad fortune to let it drop.
Since mere argument is not the measure of assent,
no one can be called certain of a proposition, whose
mind does not spontaneously and promptly reject, on
their first suggestion, as idle, as impertinent, as sophis-
tical, any objections which are directed against its
truth. No man is certain of a truth, who can endure
the thought of the fact of its contradictory existing or
198 A sseni considered as Unconditional.
occurring; and that not from any set purpose or effort to
reject thatthought,but,a8lhave said, by the spontaneous
actionof the intellect. What is contradictory to the truth,
with its apparatus of argument, fades out of the mind as
fast as it enters it ; and though it be brought back to the
mind ever so often by the pertinacity of an opponent, or
by a voluntary or involuntary act of imagination, still
that contradictory proposition and its arguments are
mere phantoms and dreams, in the light of our certitude,
and their very entering into the mind is the first step of
their going out of it. Such is the position of our minds
towards the heathen fancy that Enceladus lies under
Etna j or, not to take so extreme a case, that Joanna
Southcote was a messenger from heaven, or the Emperor
Napoleon really had a star. Equal to this peremptory
assertion of negative propositions is the revolt of the
mind from suppositions incompatible with positive
statements of which we are certain, whether abstract
truths or facts ; as that a straight line is the longest
possible distance between its two extreme points, that
Great Britain is in shape an exact square or circle,
that I shall escape dying, or that my intimate friend is
false to me.
We may indeed say, if we please, that a man ought
not to have so supreme a conviction in a given case, or
in any case whatever ; and that he is therefore wrong
in treating opinions which he does not himself hold,
with this even involuntary contempt ; — certainly, we
have a right to say so, if we will ; but if, in matter of
fact, a man has such a conviction, if he is sure that
Ireland is to the West of England, or that the Pope is
Complex Assent. 1 99
the Yicar of Christ, nothing is left to him, if he would
be consistent, but to carry his conviction out into this
magisterial intolerance of any contrary assertion ; and
if he were in his own mind tolerant, I do not say patient
(for patience and gentleness are moral duties, but I
mean intellectually tolerant), of objections as objections,
he would virtually be giving countenance to the views
which those objections represented. I say I certainly
should be very intolerant of such a notion as that I
shall one day be Emperor of the French ; I should
think it too absurd even to be ridiculous, and that I
must be mad before I could entertain it. And did a
man try to persuade me that treachery, cruelty, or in-
gratitude was as praiseworthy as honesty and tempe-
rance, and that a man who lived the life of a knave and
died the death of a brute had nothing to fear from
future retribution, I should think there was no call on
me to listen to his arguments, except with the hope of
converting him, though he called me a bigot and a
coward for refusing to inquire into his speculations.
And if, in a matter in which my temporal interests were
concerned, he attempted to reconcile me to fraudulent
acts by what he called philosophical views, I should say
to him, " Retro Satana," and that, not from any sus-
picion of his ability to reverse immutable principles,
but from a consciousness of my own moral changeable-
ness, and a fear, on that account, that I might not be
intellectually true to the truth. This, then, from the
nature of the case, is a main characteristic of certitude
in any matter, to be coni&dent indeed that that certitude
will last, but to be confident of this also, that, if it did
200 Assent conside^'ed as Uncotiditional.
fail, nevertheless, the thing itself, whatever it is, of
which we are certain, will remain just as it is, true and
irreversible. If this be so, it is easy to instance cases
of an adherence to propositions, which does not fulfil
the conditions of certitude ; for instance : —
(1 .) How positive and circumstantial disputants may
be on two sides of a question of fact, on which they
give their evidence, till they are called to swear to it,
and then how guarded and conditional their testimony
becomes ! Again, how confident are they in their rival
accounts of a transaction at which they were present,
till a third person makes his appearance, whose word
will be decisive about it ! Then they suddenly drop
their tone, and trim their statements, and by provisos
and explanations leave themselves loopholes for escape,
in case his testimony should turn out to their dis-
advantage. At first no language could be too bold or
absolute to express the distinctness of their knowledge
on this side or that ; but second thoughts are best, and
their giving way shows that their belief does not come
up to the mark of certitude.
(2.) Again, can we doubt that many a confident
expounder of Scripture, who is so sure that St. Paul
meant this, and that St. John and St. James did not
mean that, would be seriously disconcerted at the
presence of those Apostles, if their presence were pos-
sible, and that they have now an especial " boldness of
speech'^ in treating their subject, because there is no one
authoritatively to set them right, if they are wrong ?
(3.) Take another instance, in which the absence of
certitude is professed from the first. Though it is a
Complex Assent. 201
matter of faith with Catholics that miracles never cease
in the Church, still that this or that professed miracle
really took place, is for the most part only a matter of
opinion, and when it is believed, whether on testimony
or tradition, it is not believed to the exclusion of all
doubt, whether about the fact or its miraculousness.
Thus I may believe in the liquefaction of St. Pantaleon's
blood, and believe it to the best of my judgment to be
a miracle, yet, supposing a chemist offered to produce
exactly the same phenomena under exactly similar cir-
cumstances by the materials put at his command by his
science, so as to reduce what seemed beyond nature
within natural laws, I should watch with some suspense
of mind and misgiving the course of his experiment, as
having no Divine Word to fall back upon as a ground
of certainty that the liquefaction was miraculous.
(4.) Take another virtual exhibition of fear ; I mean
irritation and impatience of contradiction, vehemence of
assertion, determination to silence others, — these are the
tokens of a mind which has not yet attained the tranquil
enjoyment of certitude. No one, I suppose, would say
that he was certain of the Plurality of worlds : that
uncertitude on the subject is just the explanation, and
the only explanation satisfactory to my mind, of the
strange violence of language which has before now
dishonoured the philosophical controversy upon it.
Those who are certain of a fact are indolent disputants;
it is enough for them that they have the truth; and they
have little disposition, except at the call of duty, to
criticize the hallucinations of others, and much less
are they angry at their positiveness or ingenuity in
202 As salt considered as Unconditional.
argument ; but to call names, to impute motives, to
accuse of sophistry, to be impetuous and overbearing, is
the part of men who are alarmed for their own position,
and fear to have it approached too nearly. And in like
manner the intemperance of language and of thought,
which is sometimes found in converts to e religious
creed, is often attributed, not without plausibility (even
though erroneously in the particular case), to some flaw
in the completeness of their certitude, which interferes
with the harmony and repose of their convictions.
(5.) Again, this intellectual anxiety, which is incom-
patible with certitude, shows itself in our running back
in our minds to the arguments on which we came to
believe, in not letting our conclusions alone, in going
over and strengthening the evidence, and, as it were,
getting it by heart, as if our highest assent were only
an inference. And such too is our unnecessarily de-
claring that we are certain, as if to reassure ourselves,
and our appealing to others for their suffrage in behalf
of the truths of which we are so sure ; which is like
our asking another whether we are weary and hungry,
or have eaten and drunk to our satisfaction.
All laws are general ; none are invariable ; I am not
writing as a moralist or casuist. It must ever be re-
collected that these various phenomena of mind, though
signs, are not infallible signs of uncertitude ; they may
proceed, in the particular case, from other circum-
stances. Such anxieties and alarms may be merely
emotional and from the imagination, not intellectual ;
parallel to that beating of the heart, nay, as I have been
told, that trembling of the limbs, of even the bravest
Complex Assent. 203
men, before a battle, when standing still to receive the
first attack of the enemy. Such too is that palpitating
self-interrogation, that trouble of the mind lest it
should not believe strongly enough, which, and not
doubt, underlies the sensitiveness described in the
well-known lines, —
" With eyes too tremblingly awake,
To bear with dimness for His sake."
And so again, a man's over-earnestness in argument
may arise from zeal or charity ; his impatience from
loyalty to the truth; his extravagance from want of taste,
from enthusiasm, or from youthful ardour; and his rest-
less recurrence to argument, not from personal disquiet,
but from a vivid appreciation of the controversial talent
of an opponent, or of his own, or of the mere philoso-
phical diflBculties of the subject in dispute. These are
points for the consideration of those who are concerned
in registering and explaining what may be called the
meteorological phenomena of the human mind, and do
not interfere with the broad principle which I would lay
down, that to fear argument is to doubt the conclusion,
and to be certain of a truth is to be careless of objections
to it ; — nor with the practical rule, that mere assent is
not certitude, and must not be confused with it.
2. Now to consider what Certitude is, not simply as
it must be, but in our actual experience of it.
It is accompanied, as a state of mind, by a specific
feeling, proper to it, and discriminating it from other
states, intellectual and moral, I do not say, as its prac-
tical test or as its differentia, but as its token, and in a
certain sense its form. When a man says he is certain,
204 Assent considered as Unconditional.
he means he is conscious to himself of having this spe-
cific feeling. It is a feeling of satisfaction and self-
gratulation, of intellectual security, arising out of a sense
of success, attainment, possession, finality, as regards the
matter which has been in question. As a conscientious
deed is attended by a self-approval which nothing but
itself can create, so certitude is united to a sentiment sni
generis in which it lives and is manifested. These two
parallel sentiments indeed have no relationship with
each other, the enjoyable self-repose of certitude being
as foreign to a good deed, as the self-approving glow of
conscience is to the perception of a truth; yet knowledge,
as well as virtue, is an end, and both knowledge and
virtue, when reflected on, carry with them respectively
their own reward in the characteristic sentiment, which,
as I have said, is proper to each. And, as the perform-
ance of what is right is distinguished by this religious
peace, so the attainment of what is true is attested by
this intellectual security.
And, as the feeling of self-approbation, which is
proper to good conduct, does not belong to the sense or
to the possession of the beautiful or of the becoming, of
the pleasant or of the useful, so neither is the special
relaxation and repose of mind, which is the token of
Certitude, ever found to attend upon simple Assent, on
processes of Inference, or on Doubt ; nor on Investiga-
tion, conjecture, opinion, as such, or on any other state
or action of mind, besides Certitude. On the contrary,
those acts and states of mind have gratifications proper
to themselves, and unlike that of Certitude, as will
sufficiently appear on considering them separately.
Complex Assent. 205
(1 .) Philosophers arefondof enlarging on the pleasures
of Knowledge, (that is. Knowledge as such,) nor need I
here prove that such pleasures exist ; but the repose in
self and in its object, as connected with self, which I
attribute to Certitude, does not attach to mere knowing,
that is, to the perception of things, but to the conscious-
ness of having that knowledge. The simple and direct
perception of things has its own great satisfaction ; but
it must recognize them as realities, and recognize them
as known, before it becomes the perception and has the
satisfaction which belong to certitude. Indeed, as far as
I see, the pleasure of perceiving truth without reflecting
on it as truth, is not very different, except in intensity
and in dignity, from the pleasure, as such, of assent or
belief given to what is not true, nay, from the pleasure of
the mere passive reception of recitals or narratives, which
neither profess to be true nor claim to be believed.
Representations of any kind are in their own nature
pleasurable, whether they be true or not, whether they
come to us, or do not come, as true. We read a history,
or a biographical notice, with pleasure ; and we read a
romance with pleasure ; and a pleasure which is quite
apart from the question of fact or fiction. Indeed, when
we would persuade young people to read history, we tell
them that it is as interesting as a romance or a novel.
The mere acquisition of new images, and those images
striking, great, various, unexpected, beautiful, with
mutual relations and bearings, as being parts of a whole,
with continuity, succession, evolution, with recurring
complications and corresponding solutions, with a crisis
and a catastrophe, is highly pleasurable, quite indepen-
2o6 Assent considered as Unco7iditional.
dently of the question whether there isany truth in them.
I am not denying that we should be baulked and dis-
appointed to be told they were all untrue, but this seems
to arise from the reflection that we have been taken in ;
not as if the fact of their truth were a distinct element
of pleasure, though it would increase the pleasure, as
investing them with a character of marvellousness, and
as associating them with known or ascertained places.
But even if the pleasure of knowledge is not thus founded
on the imagination, at least it does not consist in that
triumphant repose of the mind after a struggle, which is
the characteristic of Certitude.
And so too as to such statements as gain from us a
half-assent, as superstitious tales, stories of magic, of
romantic crime, of ghosts, or such as we follow for the
moment with a faint and languid assent, — contemporary
history, political occurrences, the news of the day, — the
pleasure resulting from these is that of novelty or curi-
osity, and is like the pleasure arising from the excitement
of chance and from variety ; it has in it no sense of pos-
session : it is simply external to us, and has nothing
akin to the thought of a battle and a victory.
(2.) Again, the Pursuit of knowledge has its own
pleasui'e, — as distinct from the pleasures of knowledge, as
it is distinct from that of consciously possessing it. This
will be evident at once, if we consider what a vacuity
and depression of mind sometimes comes upon us on the
termination of an inquiry, however successfully termi-
nated, compared with the interest and spirit with which
we carried it on. The pleasure of a search, like that of
a hunt, lies in the searching, and ends at the point at
I
Complex Assent. 207
which the pleasure of Certitude begins. Its elements are
altogether foreign to those which go to compose the
serene satisfaction of Certitude. First, the successive
steps of discovery, which attend on an investigation,
are continual and ever-extending informations, and
pleasurable, not only as such, but also as the evidence
of past efforts, and the earnest of success at the last.
Next, there is the interest which attaches to a mystery,
not yet removed, but tending to removal, — the complex
pleasure of wonder, expectation, sudden surprises, sus-
pense, and hope, of advances fitful yet sure, to the
unknown. And there is the pleasure which attaches to
the toil and conflict of the strong, the consciousness
and successive evidences of power, moral and intellec-
tual, the pride of ingenuity and skill, of industry,
patience, vigilance, and perseverance.
Such are the pleasures of investigation and discovery ;
and to these we must add, what I have suggested in the
last sentence, the logical satisfaction, as it may be called,
which accompanies these efforts of mind. There is great
pleasure, as is plain, at least to certain minds, in pro-
ceeding from particular facts to principles, in general-
izing, discriminating, reducing into order and meaning
the maze of phenomena which nature presents to us.
This is the kind of pleasure attendant on the treatment of
probabilities which point at conclusions without reaching
them, or of objections which must be weighed and
measured, and adjusted for what they are worth, over
and against propositions which are antecedently evident.
It is the special pleasure belonging to Inference as
contrasted with Assent, a pleasure almost poetical, as
2o8 Assent considered as U'iuonditional.
twilight has more poetry in it than noon-day. Such is
the joy of the pleader, with a good case in hand, and
expecting the separate attacks of half a dozen acute
intellects, each advancing from a point of his own. I
suppose this was the pleasure which the Academics had
in mind, when they propounded that happiness lay, not
in finding the truth, but in seeking it. To seek, indeed,
with the certainty of not finding what we seek, cannot
in any serious matter, be pleasurable, any more than the
labour of Sisyphus or the Danaides; but when the result
does not concern us very much, clever arguments and
rival ones have the attraction of a game of chance or
skill, whether or not they lead to any definite conclusion.
(3.) Are there pleasures of Doubt, as well as of Infer-
ence and of Assent ? In one sense, there are. Not indeed,
if doubt simply means ignorance, uncertainty, or hopeless
suspense ; but there is a certain grave acquiescence in
ignorance, a recognition of our impotence to solve mo-
mentous and urgent questions, which has a satisfaction
of its own. After high aspirations, after renewed en-
deavours, after bootless toil, after long wanderings, after
hope, effort, weariness, failure, painfully alternating and
recurring, it is an immense relief to the exhausted mind
to be able to say, "At length I know that I can know
nothing about any thing," — that is, while it can main-
tain itself in a posture of thought which has no promise
of permanence, because it is unnatural. But here the
satisfaction does not lie in not knowing, but in knowing
there is nothing to know. It is a positive act of assent
or conviction, given to what in the particular case is an
untruth. It is the assent and the false certitude which
Complex Assent. 209
are the cause of the tranquillity of mind. Ignorance
remains the evil which it ever was, but something of
the peace of Certitude is gained in knowing the worst,
and in having reconciled the mind to the endurance
of it.
I may seem to have been needlessly diffuse in thus
dwelling on the pleasurable affections severally attend-
ing on these various conditions of the intellect, but I
have had a purpose in doing so. That Certitude is a
natural and normal state of mind, and not (as is some-
times objected) one of its extravagances or infirmities,
is proved indeed by the remarks which I have made
above on the same objection, as directed against Assent ;
for Certitude is only one of its forms. But I have
thought it well in addition to suggest, even at the ex-
pense of a digression, that as no one would refuse to
Inquiry, Doubt, and Knowledge a legitimate place
among our mental constituents, so no one can reasonably
ignore a state of mind which not only is shown to be
substantive by possessing a sentiment sui generis and
characteristic, but is analogical to Inquiry, Doubt, and
Knowledge, in the fact of its thus having a sentiment
of its own.
CHAPTER VII.
CERTITUDE.
§ 1. Assent and Certitude contrasted.
In proceeding to compare together simple assent and
complex, that is. Assent and Certitude, I begin by
observing, that popularly no distinction is made between
the two ; or rather, that in religious teaching that is
called Certitude to which I have given the name of
Assent. I have no difficulty in adopting such a use of
the words, though the course of my investigation has
led me to another. Perhaps religious assent may be fitly
called, to use a theological term, " material certitude ;"
and the first point of comparison which I shall make
between the two states of mind, will serve to set mo
right with the common way of speaking.
1. It certainly follows then, from the distinctions
which I have made, that great numbers of men must
be considered to pass through life with neither doubt
nor, on the other hand, certitude (as I have used the
words) on the most important propositions which can
occupy their minds, but with only a simple assent, that
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 1 1 1
is, an assent which they barely recognize, or bring home
to their consciousness or reflect upon, as being assent.
Such an assent is all that religious Protestants com-
monly have to show, who believe nevertheless with
their whole hearts the contents of Holy Scripture.
Such too is the state of mind of multitudes of good
Catholics, perhaps the majority, who live and die in a
simple, full, firm belief in all that the Church teaches,
because she teaches it, — in the belief of the irreversible
truth of whatever she defines and declares, — but who,
as being far removed from Protestant and other dis-
sentients, and having but little intellectual training,
have never had the temptation to doubt, and never the
opportunity to be certain. There were whole nations in
the middle ages thus steeped in the Catholic Faith, who
never used its doctrines as matter for argument or re-
search, or changed the original belief of their childhood
into the more scientific convictions of philosophy. As
there is a condition of mind which is characterized by
invincible ignorance, so there is another which may be
said to be possessed of invincible knowledge ; and it
would be paradoxical in me to deny to such a mental
state the highest quality of religious faith, — I mean
certitude.
I allow this, and therefore I will call simple assent
material certitude ; or, to use a still more apposite term
for it, interpretative certitude. I call it interpretative,
signifying thereby that, though the assent in the indi-
viduals here contemplated is not a reflex act, still the
question only has to be started about the truth of the
objects of their assent, in order to elicit from them an
p 2
2 1 2 Certitude.
act of faith in response which will fulfil the conditions
of certitude, as I have drawn them out. As to the argu-
mentative process necessary for such an act, it is valid
and sufiicient, if it be carried out seriously, and propor-
tionate to their several capacities : — " The Catholic
Religion is true, because its objects, as present to my
mind, control- and influence my conduct as nothing else
does ;" or ^' because it has about it an odour of truth and
sanctity sui generis, as perceptible to my moral nature as
flowers to my sense, such as can only come from heaven;"
or " because it has never been to me any thing but
peace, joy, consolation, and strength, all through my
troubled life/' And if the particular argument used in
some instances needs strengthening, then let it be
observed, that the keenness of the real apprehension with
which the assent is made, though it cannot be the
legitimate basis of the assent, may still legitimately act,
and strongly act, in confirmation. Such, I say, would
be the promptitude and effectiveness of the reasoning,
and the facility of the change from assent to certitude
proper, in the case of the multitudes in question, did the
occasion for reflection occur ; but it does not occur ; and
accordingly, most genuine and thorough as is the
assent, it can only be called virtual, material, or inter-
pretative certitude, if I have above explained certitude
rightly.
Of course these remarks hold good in secular subjects
as well as religious : — I believe, for instance, that I am
living in an island, that Julius Caesar once invaded it,
that it has been conquered by successive races, that it
has had great political and social changes, and that at
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 213
this time it has colonies, establishments, and imperial
dominion all over the earth. All this I am accustomed
to take for granted without a thought ; but, were the
need to arise, I should not find much difficulty in drawing
out from my own mental resources reasons sufficient to
justify me in these beliefs.
It is true indeed that, among the multitudes who are
thus implicitly certain, there may be those who would
change their assents, did they seek to place them upon
an argumentative footing ; for instance, some believers
in Christianity, did they examine into its claims, might
end in renouncing it. But this is only saying that
there are genuine assents, and assents that ultimately
become not genuine ; and again, that there is an assent
which is not a virtual certitude, and is lost in the attempt
to make it certitude. And of course we are not gifted
with that insight into the minds of individuals, which
enables us to determine before the event, when it is that
an assent is really such, and when not, or not a deeply
rooted assent. Men may assent lightly, or from mere
prejudice, or without understanding what it is to which
they assent. They may be genuine believers in
Revelation up to the time when they begin formally to
examine, — nay, and really have implicit reasons for their
belief, — and then, being overcome by the number of
views which they have to confront, and swayed by the
urgency of special objections, or biassed by their
imaginations, or frightened by a deeper insight into the
claims of religion upon the soul, may, in spite of their
habitual and latent grounds for believing, shrink back
and withdraw their assent. Or again, they may once
214 Certitude.
have believed, but their assent has gradually become a
mere profession, without their knowing it ; then, when
by accident they interrogate themselves, they find no
assent within them at all to turn into certitude. The
event, I say, alone determines whether what is out-
wardly an assent is really such an act of the mind as
admits of being developed into certitude, or is a mere
self-delusion or a cloak for unbelief.
2. Next, I observe, that, of the two modes of ap-
prehending propositions, notional and real, assent, as I
have already said, has closer relations with real than
with notional Now a simple assent need not be
notional ; but the reflex or confirmatory assent of cer-
titude always is given to a notional proposition, viz. to
the truth, necessity, duty, &c., of our assent to the
simple assent and to its proposition. Its predicate is a
general term, and xannot stand for a fact, whereas the
original proposition, included in it, may, and often does,
express a fact. Thus, " The cholera is in the midst of
us " is a real proposition ; but " That ' the cholera is in
the midst of us ^ is beyond all doubt '' is a notional.
Now assent to a real proposition is assent to an imagi-
nation, and an imagination, as supplying objects to our
emotional and moral nature, is adapted to be a principle
of action : accordingly, the simple assent to " The cholera
is among us,'' is more emphatic and operative, than the
confirmatory assent, "It is beyond reasonable doubt that
' the cholera is among us.* '* The confirmation gives
momentum to the complex act of the mind, but the
simple assent gives it its edge. The simple assent would
still be operative in its measure, though the reflex assent
Assent and Certitude cofitrasted. 2 1 5
was, not " It is undeniable/' but " It is probable " tbat
" the cholera is among us ;" whereas there would be no
operative force in the mental act at all, though the
reflex assent was to the truth, not to the probability of
the fact, if the fact which was the object of the simple
assent was nothing more than " The cholera is in China/*
The reflex assent then, which is the characteristic of
certitude, does not immediately touch us ; it is purely
intellectual, and, taken by itself, has scarcely more force
than the recording of a conclusion.
I have taken an instance, in which the matter which
is submitted for examination and for assent, can hardly
fail of being interesting to the minds employed upon it ;
but in many cases, even though the fact assented-to has
a bearing upon action, it is not directly of a nature to
influence the feelings or conduct, except of particular
persons. And in such instances of certitude, the
previous labour of coming to a conclusion, and that
repose of mind which I have above described as attendant
on an assent to its truth, often counteracts whatever of
lively sensation the fact thus concluded is in itself
adapted to excite j so that what is gained in depth and
exactness of belief is lost as regards freshness and vigour.
Hence it is that literary or scientific men, who may have
investigated some difficult point of history, philosophy,
or physics, and have come to their own settled conclusion
about it, having had a perfect right to form one, are far
more disposed to be silent as to their convictions, and to
let others alone, than partisans on either side of the
question, who take it up with less thought and serious-
ness. And so again, in the religious world, no one seems
2i6 Certitude.
to look for any great devotion or fervour in contro-
versialists, writers on Christian Evidences, theologians,
and the like, it being taken for granted, rightly or
wrongly, that such men are too intellectual to be
spiritual, and are more occupied with the truth of doc-
trine than with its reality. If, on the other hand, we
would see what the force of simple assent can be, viewed
apart from its reflex confirmation, we have but to look at
the generous and uncalculating energy of faith as
exemplified in the primitive Martyrs, in the youths who
defied the pagan tyrant, or the maidens who were
^lent under his tortures. It is assent, pure and simple,
which is the motive cause of great achievements ; it is
a confidence, growing out of instincts rather than argu-
ments, stayed upon a vivid apprehension, and animated
by a transcendent logic, more concentrated in will and
in deed for the very reason that it has not been sub-
jected to any intellectual development.
It must be borne in mind, that, in thus speaking, I
am contrasting with each other the simple and the
reflex assent, which together make up the complex act
of certitude. In its complete exhibition keenness in
believing is united with repose and persistence.
3. We must take the constitution of the human mind
as we find it, and not as we may judge it ought to be ; —
thus I am led on to another remark, which is at first
sight disadvantageous to Certitude. Introspection of our
intellectual operations is not the best of means for pre-
serving us from intellectual hesitations. To meddle with
the springs of thought and action is really to weaken
them ; and, as to that argumentation which is the pre-
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 217
liminary to Certitude, it may indeed be unavoidable, but,
as in the case of other serviceable allies, it is not so easy
to discard it, after it has done its work, as it was in
the first instance to obtain its assistance. Questioning,
when encouraged on any subject-matter, readily becomes
a habit, and leads the mind to substitute exercises of
inference for assent, whether simple or complex. Rea-
sons for assenting suggest reasons for not assenting, and
what were realities to our imagination, while our assent
was simple, may become little more than notions, when
we have attained to certitude. Objections and diflBculties
tell upon the mind; it may lose its elasticity, and be
unable to throw them off. And thus, even as regards
things which it may be absurd to doubt, we may, in
consequence of some past suggestion of the possibility of
error, or of some chance association to their disadvantage,
be teazed from time to time and hampered by involun-
tary questionings, as if we were not certain, when we
are. Nay, there are those, who are visited with these
even permanently, as a sort of muscoe voUtantes of their
mental vision, ever flitting to and fro, and dimming
its clearness and completeness — visitants, for which they
are not responsible, and which they know to be unreal,
still 80 seriously interfering with their comfort and even
with their energy, that they may be tempted to com-
plain that even blind prejudice has more of quiet and
of durability than certitude.
As even Saints may suffer from imaginations in which
they have no part, so the shreds and tatters of former
controversies, and the litter of an argumentative habit,
may beset and obstruct the intellect, — questions which
2 1 8 Certitude.
have been solved without their solutions, chains of reason-
ing with missing links, difficulties which have their roots
in the nature of things, and which are necessarily left
behind in a philosophical inquiry because they cannot be
removed, and which call for the exercise of good sense
and for strength of will to put them down with a high
hand, as irrational or preposterous. Whence comes evil ?
why are we created without our consent ? how can the
Supreme Being have no beginning ? how can He need
skill, if He is omnipotent ? if He is omnipotent, why
does He permit suffering ? If He permits suffering, how
is He all-loving ? if He is all-loving, how can He be
just ? if He is infinite, what has He to do with the
finite ? how can the temporary be decisive of the eter-
nal ? — these, and a host of like questions, must arise in
every thoughtful mind, and, after the best use of reason,
must be deliberately put aside, as beyond reason, as (so
to speak) no-thoroughfares, which, having no outlet
themselves, have no legitimate power to divert us from
the King's highway, and to hinder the direct course of
religious inquiry from reaching its destination. A
serious obstruction, however, they will be now and then
to particular minds, enfeebling the faith which they
cannot destroy, — being parallel to the uncomfortable
associations with which sometimes we regard one whom
we have fallen-in with, acquaintance or stranger, arising
from some chance word, look, or action of his which we
have witnessed, and which prejudices him in our imagi-
nation, though we are angry with ourselves that it
should do so.
Again, when, in confidence of our own certitude, and
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 219
with a view to philosophical fairness^ we have attempted
successfully to throw ourselves out of our habits of belief
into a simply dispassionate frame of mind^ then vague
antecedent improbabilities, or what seem to us as such,
— merely what is strange or marvellous in certain truths,
merely the fact that things happen in one way and not
in another, when they must happen in some way, — may
disturb us, as suggesting to us, *' Is it possible ? who
would have thought it ! what a coincidence ! '' without
really touching the deep assent of our whole intellectual
being to the object, whatever it be, thus irrationally
assailed. Thus we may wonder at the Divine Mercy of
the Incarnation, till we grow startled at it, and ask why
the earth has so special a theological history, or why we
are Christians and others not, or how Grod can really
exert a particular governance, since He does not punish
such sinners as we are, thus seeming to doubt His
power or His equity, though in truth we are not doubt-
ing at alL
The occasion of this intellectual waywardness may be
slighter still. I gaze on the Palatine Hill, or on the
Parthenon, or on the Pyramids, which I have read of
from a boy, or upon the matter-of-fact reality of the
sacred places in the Holy Land, and I have to force my
imagination to follow the guidance of sight and of
reason. It is to me so strange that a lifelong belief
should be changed into sight, and things should be
80 near me, which hitherto had been visions. And
80 in times, first of suspense, then of joy ; " WTien the
Lord turned the captivity of Sion, then ** (according to
the Hebrew text) " we were like unto them that dream."
2 20 Certitude.
Yet it was a dream which they were certain was a truth,
while they seemed to doubt it. So, too, was it in some
sense with the Apostles after our Lord's resurrection.
Such vague thoughts, haunting or evanescent, are in
no sense akin to that struggle between faith and unbelief,
which made the poor father cry out, '' I believe, help
Thou mine unbelief ! '' Nay, even what in some minds
seems like an undercurrent of scepticism, or a faith
founded on a perilous substratum of doubt, need not be
more than a temptation, though robbing Certitude of its
normal peacefulness. In such a case, faith may still
express the steady conviction of the intellect ; it may
still be the grave, deep, calm, prudent assurance of
mature experience, though it is not the ready and im-
petuous assent of the young, the generous, or the
unreflecting.
4. There is another characteristic of Certitude, in
contrast with Assent, which it is important to insist
upon, and that is, its persistence. Assents may and do
change; certitudes endure. This is why religion demands
more than an assent to its truth ; it requires a certitude,
or at least an assent which is convertible into certitude
on demand. Without certitude in religious faith there
may be much decency of profession and of observance,
but there can be no habit of prayer, no directness of
devotion, no intercourse with the unseen, no generosity
of self-sacrifice. Certitude then is essential to the
Christian; and if he is to persevere to the end, his
certitude must include in it a principle of persistence.
This it has ; as I shall explain in the next Section. j iB
Indefectibility of Certitude. 221
§ 2. Indefectibility op CERTiruDE.
It is the characteristic of certitude that its object is a
truth, a truth as such, a proposition as true. There are
right and wrong convictions, and certitude is a right
conviction; if it is not right with a consciousness of
being right, it is not certitude. Now truth cannot
change ; what is once truth is always truth ; and the
human mind is made for truth, and so rests in truth, as
it cannot rest in falsehood. When then it once becomes
possessed of a truth, what is to dispossess it ? but this is
to be certain ; therefore once certitude, always certitude.
If certitude in any matter be the termination of all doubt
or fear about its truth, and an unconditional conscious
adherence to it, it carries with it an inward assurance,
strong though implicit, that it shall never fail. Inde-
fectibility almost enters into its very idea, enters into it
at least so far as this, that its failure, if of frequent
occurrence, would prove that certitude was after all and
in fact an impossible act, and that what looked like it
was a mere extravagance of the intellect. Truth would
still be truth, but the knowledge of it would be beyond
us and unattainable. It is of great importance then to
show, that, as a general rule, certitude does not fail ; that
2 22 Certitude,
failures of what was taken for certitude are the exception;
that the intellect, which is made for truth, can attain
truth, and, having attained it, can keep it, can recognize
it, and preserve the recognition.
This is on the whole reasonable ; yet are the stipu-
lations, thus obviously necessary for an act or state of
certitude, ever fulfilled ? We know what conjecture is,
and what opinion, and what assent is, can we point out
any specific state or habit of thought, of which the dis-
tinguishing mark is unchangeableness ? On the con-
trary, any conviction, false as well as true, may last : and
any conviction, true as well as false, may be lost. A
conviction in favour of a proposition may be exchanged
for a conviction of its contradictory ; and each of them
may be attended, while they last, by that sense of security
and repose, which a true object alone can legitimately
impart. No line can be drawn between such real certi-
tudes as have truth for their object, and apparent cer-
titudes. No distinct test can be named, suflSicient to
discriminate between what may be called the false
prophet and the true. What looks like certitude always
is exposed to the chance of turning out to be a mistake.
If our intimate, deliberate conviction may be counterfeit
in the case of one proposition, why not in the case of
another ? if in the case of one man, why not in the case of
a hundred ? Is certitude then ever possible without
the attendant gift of infallibility ? can we know what is
right in one case, unless we are secured against error in
any ? Further, if one man is infallible, why is he different
from his brethren ? unless indeed he is distinctly marked \
out for the prerogative. Must not all men be infallible
Indefectibility of Certihide. 223
by consequence, if any man is to be considered as
certain ?
The difficulty, thus stated argumentatively, has only
too accurate a response in what actually goes on in the
world. It is a fact of daily occurrence that men change
their certitudes, that is, what they consider to be such,
and are as confident and well-established in their new
opinions as they were once in their old. They take up
forms of religion only to leave them for their contra-
dictories. They risk their fortunes and their lives on
impossible adventures. They commit themselves by word
and deed, in reputation and position, to schemes which
in the event they bitterly repent of and renounce ; they
set out in youth with intemperate confidence in prospects
which fail them, and in friends who betray them, ere
they come to middle age ; and they end their days in
cynical disbelief of truth and virtue any where ; — and
often, the more absurd are their means and their ends, so
much the longer do they cling to them, and then again
so much the more passionate is their eventual disgust
and contempt of them. How then can certitude be
theirs, how is certitude possible at all, considering it is
80 often misplaced, so often fickle and inconsistent, so
deficient in available criteria ? And, as to the feeling of
finality and security, ought it ever to be indulged ? Is
it not a mere weakness or extravagance, a deceit, to be
eschewed by every clear and prudent mind ? With the
countless instances, on all sides of us, of human fallibility,
with the constant exhibitions of antagonist certitudes,
who can so sin against modesty and sobriety of mind, as
not to be content with probability, as the true guide of
224 Certitude.
life, renouncing ambitious thoughts, which are sure
either to dekide him, or to disappoint ?
This is what may be objected : now let us see what
can be said in answer, particularly as regards religious
certitude.
1.
First, as to fallibility and infallibility. It is very
common, doubtless, especially in religious controversy,
to confuse infallibility with certitude, and to argue that,
since we have not the one, we have not the other, for that
no one can claim to be certain on any point, who is not
infallible about all; but the two words stand for things
quite distinct from each other. For example, I remem-
ber for certain what I did yesterday, but still my memory
is not infallible; I am quite clear that two and two
makes four, but I often make mistakes in long addition
sums. I have no doubt whatever that John or Richard
is my true friend, but I have before now trusted those
who failed me, and I may do so again before I die. A
certitude is directed to this or that particular proposition;
it is not a faculty or gift, but a disposition of mind rela-
tively to a definite case which is before me. InfalUbi-
lity, on the contrary, is just that which certitude is not;
it is a faculty or gift, and relates, not to some one truth
in particular, but to all possible propositions in a given
subject-matter. We ought in strict propriety, to speak,
not of infallible acts, but of acts of infallibility. A belief
or opinion as little admits of being called infallible, as a
deed can correctly be called immortal. A deed is done
and over ; it may be great, momentous, efiective, any-
Indefectibility of Certitude, 225
thing but immortal ; it is its fame, it is the work which
it brings to pass, which is immortal, not the deed itself.
And as a deed is good or bad, but never immortal, so a
belief, opinion, or certitude is true or false, but never
infallible. We cannot speak of things which exist or
things which once were, as if they were something in
posse. It is persons and rules that are infallible, not
what is brought out into act, or committed to paper. A
man is infallible, whose words are always true ; a rule is
infallible, if it is unerring in all its possible applications.
An infallible authority is certain in every particular case
that may arise ; but a man who is certain in some one
definite case, is not on that account infallible.
I am quite certain that Victoria is our Sovereign, and
not her father, the late Duke of Kent, without laying
any claim to the gift of infallibility; as I may do a
virtuous action, without being impeccable. I may be
certain that the Church is infallible, while I am myself
a fallible mortal; otherwise, I cannot be certain that
the Supreme Being is infallible, until I am infallible
myself. It is a strange objection, then, which is some-
times urged against Catholics, that they cannot prove
and assent to the Church's infallibility, unless they first
'>believe in their own. Certitude, as I have said, is
directed to one or other definite concrete proposition. I
am certain of proposition one, two, three, four, or five,
one by one, each by itself. I may be certain of one of
them, without being certain of the rest ; that I am cer-
tain of the first makes it neither likely nor unlikely that
I am certain of the second ; but were I infallible, then I
should be certain, not only of one of them, but of all,
Q
2 26 Certitude.
and of many more besides, which have never come before
me as yet. Therefore we may becertain of the infallibility
of the Church, while we admit that in many things we
are not, and cannot be, certain at all.
It is wonderful that a clear-headed man, like Chilling-
worth, sees this as little as the run of every-day objec-
tors to the Catholic religion; for in his celebrated
*' Religion of Protestants'' he writes as follows: — "You
tell me they cannot be saved, unless they believe in your
proposals with an infallible faith. To which end they
must believe also your propounder, the Church, to be
simply infallible. Now how is it possible for them to
give a rational assent to the Church's infallibility, unless
they have some infallible means to know that she is infal-
lible ? Neither can they infallibly know the infallibility
of this means, but by some other ; and so on for ever,
unless they can dig so deep, as to come at length to the
Rock, that is, to settle all upon something evident of
itself, which is not so much as pretended." ^
Now what is an *' infallible means " ? It is a means
of coming at a fact without the chance of mistake. It
is a proof which is sufficient for certitude in the parti-
cular case, or a proof that is certain. When then Chil-
lingworth says that there can be no " rational assent to
the Church's infallibility" without "some infallible
means of knowing that she is infallible," he means
nothing else than some means which is certain ; he says
that for a rational assent to infallibility there must be an
absolutely valid or certain proof. This is intelligible ;
but observe how his argument will run, if worded
' ii. n. 154. ^Ide Note at the end of the volume.
hidefectibility of Certitude. 227
according to this interpretation : " The doctrine of the
Church's infallibility requires a proof that is certain ;
and that certain proof requires another previous certain
proof, and that again another^ and so on ad infinitum,
unless indeed we dig so deep as to settle all upon some-
thing evident of itself/' What is this but to say that
nothing in this world is certain but what is self-evident ?
that nothing can be absolutely proved ? Can he really
mean this ? What then becomes of physical truth ? of
the discoveries in optics, chemistry, and electricity, or
of the science of motion ? Intuition by itself will carry
us but a little way into that circle of knowledge which
is the boast of the present age.
I can believe then in the infallible Church without
my own personal infallibility. Certitude is at most
nothing more than infallibility pro hac vice, and promises
nothing as to the truth of any proposition beside its
own. That I am certain of this proposition to-day, is
no ground for thinking that I shall have a right to be
certain of that proposition to-morrow ; and that I am
wrong in my convictions about to-day's proposition,
does not hinder my having a true conviction, a genuine
certitude, about to-morrow's proposition. If indeed I
claimed to be infallible, one failure would shiver my
claim to pieces ; but I may claim to be certain of the
truth to which I have already attained, though I should
arrive at no new truths in addition as long as I
live.
q2
2 28 Certitude.
2.
Let us put aside the word "infallibility;" let us
understand by certitude^ as I have explained it, nothing
more than a relation of the mind towards given propo-
sitions : — still, it may be urged, it involves a sense of
security and of repose, at least as regards these in parti-
cular. Now how can this security be mine, — without
which certitude is not, — if I know, as I know too well,
that before now I have thought myself certain, when I
was certain after all of an untruth ? Is not the very
possibility of certitude lost to me for ever by that one
mistake? What happened once, may happen again.
All my certitudes before and after are henceforth de-
stroyed by the introduction of a reasonable doubt, under-
lying them all. Ijpso facto they ceatse to be certitudes, —
they come short of unconditional assents by the measure
of that counterfeit assurance. They are nothing more
to me than opinions or anticipations, judgments on the
verisimilitude of intellectual views, not the possession
and enjoyment of truths. And who has not thus been
balked by false certitudes a hundred times in the course
of his experience ? and how can certitude have a legiti-
mate place in our mental constitution, when it thus
manifestly ministers to error and to scepticism ?
This is what may be objected, and it is not, as I think,
difficult to answer. Certainly, the experience of mistakes
in the assents which we have made are to the prejudice of
subsequent ones. There is an antecedent difficulty in our
allowing ourselves to be certain of something to-day, if
yesterday we had to give up our belief of something else.
Indefectibility of Certihide. 229
of which we had up to that time professed ourselves to
be certain. This is true; but antecedent objections to an
act are not sufficient of themselves to prohibit its exer-
cise ; they may demand of us an increased circumspec-
tion before committing ourselves to it, but may be met
with reasons more than sufficient to overcome them.
It must be recollected that certitude is a deliberate
assent given expressly after reasoning. If then my cer-
titude is unfounded, it is the reasoning that is in fault,
not my assent to it. It is the law of my mind to seal
up the conclusions to which ratiocination has brought
me, by that formal assent which I have called a certi-
tude. I could indeed have withheld my assent, but I
should have acted against my nature, had I done so when
there was what I considered a proof; and I did only
what was fitting, what was incumbent on me, upon
those existing conditions, in giving it. This is the pro-
cess by which knowledge accumulates and is stored up
both in the individual and in the world. It has some-
times been remarked, when men have boasted of the
knowledge of modern times, that no wonder we see more
than the ancients, because we are mounted upon their
shoulders. The conclusions of one generation are the
truths of the next. We are able, it is our duty, deli-
berately to take things for granted which our forefathers
had a duty to doubt about; and unless we summarily
put down disputation on points which have been already
proved and ruled, we shall waste our time, and make no
advances. Circumstances indeed may arise, when a
question may legitimately be revived, which has already
been definitely determined; but a re-consideration of
2 30 Certitude.
such a question need not abruptly unsettle the existing
certitude of those who engage in it, or throw them into
a scepticism about things in general, even though
eventually they j&nd they have been wrong in a particu-
lar matter. It would have been absurd to prohibit the
controversy which has lately been held concerning the
obligations of Newton to Pascal ; and supposing it had
issued in their being established, the partisans of
Newton would not have thought it necessary to renounce
their certitude of the law of gravitation itself, on the
ground that they had been mistaken in their certitude
that Newton discovered it.
If we are never to be certain, after having been once
certain wrongly, then we ought never to attempt a
proof because we have once made a bad one. Errors in
reasoning are lessons and warnings, not to give up
reasoning, but to reason with greater caution. It is
absurd to break up the whole structure of our knowledge,
which is the glory of the human intellect, because the
intellect is not infallible in its conclusions. If in any par-
ticular case we have been mistaken in our inferences and
the certitudes which followed upon them, we are bound
of course to take the fact of this mistake into account, in
making up our minds on any new question, before we
proceed to decide upon it. But if, while weighing the
arguments on one side and the other and drawing our
conclusion, that old mistake has already been allowed
for, or has been, to use a familiar mode of speaking, dis-
counted, then it has no outstanding claim against our
acceptance of that conclusion, after it has actually been
drawn. Whatever be the legitimate weight of the fact
I ndef edibility of Certitude. 231
of that mistake in our inquiry, justice has been done to
it, before we have allowed ourselves to be certain again.
Suppose I am walking out in the moonlight, and see
dimly the outlines of some figure among the trees ; — it is
a man. I draw nearer, — it is still a man ; nearer still,
and all hesitation is at an end, — I am certain it is a man.
But he neither moves, nor speaks when I address him ;
and then I ask myseK what can be his purpose in hiding
among the trees at such an hour. I come quite" close to
him, and put out my arm. Then I find for certain that
what I took for a man is but a singular shadow, formed
by the falling of the moonlight on the interstices of some
branches or their foliage. Am I not to indulge my
second certitude, because I was wrong in my first ? does
not any objection, which lies against my second from
the failure of my first, fade away before the evidence
on which my second is founded ?
Or again : I depose on my oath in a court of justice,
to the best of my knowledge and belief, that I was robbed
by the prisoner at the bar. Then, when the real offender
is brought before me, I am obliged, to my great confu-
sion, to retract. Because I have been mistaken in my
certitude, may I not at least be certain that I have been
mistaken ? And further, in spite of the shock which
that mistake gives me, is it impossible that the sight of
the real culprit may give me so luminous a conviction
that at length I have got the right man, that, were it
decent towards the court, or consistent with self-respect,
I may find myself prepared to swear to the identity of
the second, as I have already solemnly committed myself
to the identity of the first ? It is manifest that the two
232 Certitude.
certitudes stand each on its ownbasis^and the antecedent
objection to my admission of a truth which was brought
home to me second, drawn from a hallucination which
came first, is a mere abstract argument, impotent when
directed against good evidence lying in the concrete.
3.
If in the criminal case -vyhich I have been supposing,
the second certitude, felt by a witness, was a legitimate
state of mind, so was the first. An act, viewed in itself,
is not wrong because it is done wrongly. False certi-
tudes are faults because they are false, not because they
are (supposed) certitudes. They are, or may be, the
attempts and the failures of an intellect insufficiently
trained, or off its guard. Assent is an act of the mind,
congenial to its nature; and it, as other acts, may be
made both when it ought to be made, and when it
ought not. It is a free act, a personal act for which
the doer is responsible, and the actual mistakes in
making it, be they ever so numerous or senous, have no
force whatever to prohibit the act itself. We are accus-
tomed in such cases, to appeal to the maxim, " Usum
non tollit abusus /' and it is plain that, if what may be
called functional disarrangements of the intellect are to
be considered fatal to the recognition of the functions
themselves, then the mind has no laws whatever and no
normal constitution. I just now spoke of tho growth
of knowledge ; there is also a growth in the use of those
faculties by which knowledge is acquired. The intellect
admits of an education j man is a being of progress ; he
I ndef edibility of Certitude. 233
has to learn how to fulfil his end, and to be what facts
show that he is intended to be. His mind is in the first
instance in disorder, and runs wild ; his faculties have
their rudimental and inchoate state, and are gradually
carried on by practice and experience to their perfec-
tion. No instances then whatever of mistaken certitude
are sufficient to constitute a proof, that certitude itself
is a perversion or extravagance of his nature.
We do not dispense with clocks, because from time
to time they go wrong, and tell untruly. A clock, or-
ganically considered, may be perfect, yet it may require
regulating. Till that needful work is done, the moment-
hand perhaps marks the half-minute, when the minute-
hand is at the quarter-past, and the hour hand is just
at noon, and the quarter-bell strikes the three-quarters,
and the hour-bell strikes four, while the sun-dial pre-
cisely tells two o'clock. The sense of certitude may be
called the bell of the intellect ; and that it strikes when
it should not is a proof that the clock is out of order,
no proof that the bell will be untrustworthy and use-
less, when it comes to us adjusted and regulated from
the hands of the clock -maker.
Our conscience too may be said to strike the hours,
and will strike them wrongly, unless it be duly regu-
lated for the performance of its proper function. It is
the loud announcement of the principle of right in the
details of conduct, as the sense of certitude is the clear
witness to what is true. Both certitude and conscience
have a place in the normal condition of the mind. As a
human being, I am unable, if I were to try, to live with-
out some kind of conscience ; and I am as little able to
234 Certitude.
live without those landmarks of thought which certitude
secures for me ; still, as the hammer of a clock may
tell untruly, so may my conscience and my sense of cer-
titude be attached to mental acts, whether of consent or
of assent, which have no claim to be thus sanctioned.
Both the moral and the intellectual sanction are liable to
be biassed by personal inclinations and motives ; both
require and admit of discipline ; and, as it is no dis-
proof of the authority of conscience that false con-
sciences abound, neither does it destroy tlie importance
and the uses of certitude, because even educated minds,
who are earnest in their inquiries after the truth, in many
cases remain under the power of prejudice or delusion.
To this deficiency in mental training a wider error is
to be attributed, — the mistaking for conviction and
certitude states and frames of mind which make no
pretence to the fundamental condition on which con-
viction rests as distinct from assent. The multitude of
men confuse together the probable, the possible, and
the certain, and apply these terms to doctrines and
statements almost at random. They have no clear
view what it is they know, what they presume, what
they suppose, and what they only assert. They make
little distinction between credence, opinion, and profes-
sion ; at various times they give them all perhaps the
name of certitude, and accordingly, when they change
their minds, they fancy they have given up points of
which they had a true conviction. Or at least by-
standers thus speak of them, and the very idea of
certitude falls into disrepute.
In this day the subject-matter of thought and belief
hidefectibility of Certitude. 235
has so increased upon us, that a far higher mental for-
mation is required than was necessary in times past,
and higher than we have actually reached. The whole
world is brought to our doors every morning, and our
judgment is required upon social concerns, books, per-
sons, parties, creeds, national acts, political principles
and measures. We have to form our opinion, make
our profession, take our side on a hundred matters on
which we have but little right to speak at all. But we
do speak, and must speak, upon them, though neither
we nor those who hear us are well able to determine
what is the real position of our intellect relatively to
those many questions, one by one, on which we commit
ourselves ; and then, since many of these questions
change their complexion with the passing hour, and
many require elaborate consideration, and many are
simply beyond us, it is not wonderful, if, at the end of
a few years, we have to revise or to repudiate our con-
clusions ; and then we shall be unfairly said to have
changed our certitudes, and shall confirm the doctrine,
that, except in abstract truth, no judgment rises higher
than probability.
Such are the mistakes about certitude among edu-
cated men ; and after referring to them, it is scarcely
worth while to dwell upon the absurdities and excesses
of the rude intellect, as seen in the world at large ; as
if any one could dream of treating as deliberate assents,
as assents upon assents, as convictions or certitudes,
the prejudices, credulities, infatuations, superstitions,
fanaticisms, the whims and fancies, the sudden irre-
vocable plunges into the unknown, the obstinate deter-
236 Certitude.
minations, — the offspring, as they are, of ignorance,
wilfulness, cupidity, and pride, — which go so far to
make up the history of mankind ; yet these are often
set down as instances of certitude and o£ its failure.
4.
I have spoken of certitude as being assigned a definite
and fixed place among our mental acts ; it follows upon
examination and proof, as the bell sounds the hour, when
the hands reach it, — so that no act or state of the intel-
lect is certitude, however it may resemble it, which does
not observe this appointed law. This proviso greatly
dimiuishes the catalogue of genuine certitudes. Another
restriction is this : — the occasions or subject-matters of
certitude are under law also. Putting aside the daily
exercise of the senses, the principal subjects in secular
knowledge, about which we can be certain, are the
truths or facts which are its basis. As to this world,
we are certain of the elements of knowledge, whether
general, scientific, historical, or such as bear on our
daily needs and habits, and relate to ourselves, our
homes and families, our friends, neighbourhood, coun-
try, and civil state. Beyond these elementary points
of knowledge, lies a vast subject-matter of opinion,
credence, and belief, viz. the field of public affairs, of
social and professional life, of business, of duty, of
literature, of taste, nay, of the experimental sciences.
On subjects such as these the reasonings and conclusions
of mankind vary, — " mundum tradidit disputationi
eorum/* — and prudent men in consequence seldom
Indefectibility of Certitude. 237
speak confidently, unless they are warranted to do so by
genius, great experience, or some special qualification.
They determine their judgments by what is probable,
what is safe, what promises best, what has verisimili-
tude, what impresses and sways them. They neither can
possess, nor need certitude, nor do they look out for it.
Hence it is that — the province of certitude being so
contracted, and that of opinion so large — it is common
to call probability the guide of life. This saying, when
properly explained, is true; however, we must not
sufier ourselves to carry a true maxim to an extreme ;
it is far from true, if we so hold it as to forget that
without first principles there can be no conclusions at
all, and that thus probability does in some sense pre-
suppose and require the existence of truths which are
certain. Especially is the maxim untrue, in respect to the
other great department of knowledge, the spiritual, if
taken to support the doctrine, that the first principles
and elements of religion, which are universally received,
are mere matter of opinion ; though in this day, it is
too often taken for granted that religion is one of those
subjects on which truth cannot be discovered, and on
which one conclusion is pretty much on a level with
another. But on the contrary, the initial truths of
divine knowledge ought to be viewed as parallel to the
initial truths of secular : as the latter are certain, so too
are the former. I cannot indeed deny that a decent
reverence for the Supreme Being, an acquiescence in the
claims of Revelation, a general profession of Christian
doctrine, and some sort of attendance on sacred ordi-
nances, is in fact all the religion that is usual with even
238 • Certitude.
the better sort of men, and that for all this a siiflBcient
basis may certainly be found in probabilities ; but if
religion is to be devotiouj and not a mere matter of senti-
ment, if it is to be made the ruling principle of our lives,
if our actions, one by one, and our daily conduct, are to
be consistently directed towards an Invisible Being, we
need something higher than a mere balance of argu-
ments to fix and to control our minds. Sacrifice of
wealth, name, or position, faith and hope, self-conquest,
communion with the spiritual world, presuppose a real
hold and habitual intuition of the objects of Revelation,
which is certitude under another name.
To this issue indeed we may bring the main difierence,
viewed philosophically, between nominal Christianity
on the one hand, and vital Christianity on the other.
Rational, sensible men, as they consider themselves,
men who do not comprehend the very notion of loving
God above all things, are content with such a measure
of probability for the truths of religion, as serves them
in their secular transactions ', but those who are delibe-
rately staking their all upon the hopes of the next
world, think it reasonable, and find it necessary, before
starting on their new course, to have some points, clear
and immutable, to start from ; otherwise, they will not
start at all. They ask, as a preliminary condition, to
have the ground sure under their feet ; they look for
more than human reasonings and inferences, for nothing
less than the "strong consolation,*' as the Apostle
speaks, of those " immutable things in which it is im-
possible for God to lie," His counsel and His oath.
Christian earnestness may be ruled by the world to be
I fide fectibility of Certitude, 239
a perverseness or a delusion ; but, as long as it exists,
it will presuppose certitude as the very life which is to
animate it.
This is the true parallel between human and divine
knowledge ; each of them opens into a large field of
mere opinion, but in both the one and the other the
primary principles, the general, fundamental, cardinal
truths are immutable. In human matters we are
guided by probabilities, but, I repeat, they are proba-
bilities founded on certainties. It is on no probability
that we are constantly receiving the informations and
dictates of sense and memory, of our intellectual in-
stincts, of the moral sense, and of the logical faculty.
It is on no probability that we receive the generaliza-
tions of science, and the great outlines of history. These
are certain truths ; and from them each of us forms his
own judgments and directs his own course, according to
the probabilities which they suggest to him, as the navi-
gator applies his observations and his charts for the
determination of his course. Such is the main view to
be taken of the separate provinces of probability and
certainty in matters of this world ; and so, as regards
the world invisible and future, we have a direct and
conscious knowledge of our Maker, His attributes.
His providences, acts, works, and will, from nature,
and revelation ; and, beyond this knowledge lies the
large domain of theology, metaphysics, and ethics, on
which it is not allowed to us to advance beyond pro-
babilities, or to attain to more than an opinion.
Such on the whole is the analogy between our know-
ledge of matters of this world and matters of the world
240 Certitude.
unseen ; — indefectible certitude in primary truths, mani-
fold variations of opinion in their application and dis-
position.
5.
I have said that Certitude, whether in human or divine
knowledge, is attainable as regards general and cardinal
truths ; and that in neither department of knowledge,
on the whole, is certitude discredited, lost, or reversed ;
for, in matter of fact, whether in human or divine,
those primary truths have ever kept their place from
the time when they first took possession of it. How-
ever, there is one obvious objection which may be made
to this representation, and I proceed to take notice of
it.
It may be urged then, that time was when the primary
truths of science were unkuown., and when in conse-
quence various theories were held, contrary to each
other. The first element of all things was said to be
water, to be air, to be fire; the framework of the
universe was eternal ; or it was the ever-new com-
bination of innumerable atoms : the planets were fixed
in solid crystal revolving spheres ; or they moved round
the earth in epicycles mounted upon circular orbits ;
or they were carried whirling round about the sun,
while the sun was whirling round the earth. About
such doctrines there was no certitude, no more than
there is now certitude about the origin of languages,
the age of man, or the evolution of species, considered
as philosophical questions. Now theology is at present
in the very same state in which natural science was five
Indef edibility of Certitude. 241
hundred years ago ; and this is the proof of it, — that,
instead of there being one received theological science in
the world, there are a multitude of hypotheses. We
have a professed science of Atheism, another of Deism, a
Pantheistic, ever so many Christian theologies, to say
nothing of Judaism, Islamism, and the Oriental religions.
Each of these creeds has its own upholders, and these
upholders all certain that it is the very and the only
truth, and these same upholders, it may happen, pre-
sently giving it up, and then taking up some other
creed, and being certain again, as they profess, that it
and it only is the truth, these various so-called truths
being incompatible with each other. Are not Jews
certain about their interpretation of their law ? yet they
become Christians : are not Catholics certain about the
new law ? yet they become Protestants. At present
then, and as yet, there is no clear certainty anywhere
about religious truth at all ; it has still to be discovered ;
and therefore for Catholics to claim the right to lay down
the first principles of theological science in their own
way, is to assume the very matter in dispute. First let
their doctrines be universally received, and then they
will have a right to place them on a level with the
certainty which belongs to the laws of motion or of
refraction. This is the objection which I propose to
consider.
Now first as to the want of universal reception which
is urged against the Catholic dogmas, this part of the
objection will not require many words. Surely a truth
or a fact may be certain, though it is not generally
received; — we are each of us ever gaining through our
B
242 Certitude.
senses various certainties, which no one shares with us ;
again, the certainties of the sciences are in the possession
of a few countries only, and for the most part only of
the educated classes in those countries ; yet the philo-
sophers of Europe and America would feel certain that
the earth rolled round the sun, in spite of the Indian
belief of its being supported by an elephant with a tor-
toise under it. The Catholic Church then, though not
universally acknowledged, may without inconsistency
claim to teach the primary truths of religion, just as
modem science, though but partially received, claims to
teach the great principles and laws which are the foun-
dation of secular knowledge, and that with a significance
to which no other religious system can pretend, because
it is its very profession to speak to all mankind, and its
very badge to be ever making converts all over the
earth, whereas other religions are more or less variable
in their teaching, tolerant of each other, and local, and
professedly local, in their habitat and character.
This, however, is not the main point of the objection;
the real difficulty lies not in the variety of religions, but
in the contradiction, conflict, and change of religious
certitudes. Truth need not be universal, but it must
of necessity be certain ; and certainty, in order to be
certainty, must endure; yet how is this reasonable
expectation fulfilled in the case of religion ? On the
contrary, those who have been the most certain in their
beliefs are sometimes found to lose them, Catholics as
well as others ; and then to take up new beliefs, perhaps
contrary ones, of which they become as certain as if they
had never been certain of the old.
I
Indef edibility of Certitude. 243
In answering this representation, I begin with recur-
ring to the remark which I have already made, that
assent and certitude have reference to propositions, one
by one. We may of course assent to a number of pro-
positions all together, that is, we may make a number
of assents all at once ; but in doing so we run the risk
of putting upon one level, and treating as if of the same
value, acts of the mind which are very different from
each other in character and circumstance. An assent,
indeed, is ever an assent ; but given assents may be
strong or weak, deliberate or impulsive, lasting or
ephemeral. Now a religion is not a proposition, but a
system ; it is a rite, a creed, a philosophy, a rule of duty,
all at once ; and to accept a religion is neither a simple
assent to it nor a complex, neither a conviction nor
a prejudice, neither a notional assent nor a real, not
a mere act of profession, nor of credence, nor of opinion,
nor of speculation, but it is a collection of all these
various kinds of assents, at once and together, some of
one description, some of another ; but, put of all these
different assents, how many are of that kind which I
have called certitude ? Certitudes indeed do not change,
but who shall pretend that assents are indefectible ?
For instance : the fundamental dogma of Protestant-
ism is the exclusive authority of Holy Scripture ; but in
holding this a Protestant holds a host of propositions,
explicitly or implicitly, and holds them with assents of
various character. Among these propositions, he holds
that Scripture is the Divine Revelation itself, that it is
inspired, that nothing is known in doctrine but what is
there, that the Church has no authority in matters
R 2
244 Certitude.
of doctrine, that, as claiming it, it condemned long
ago in the Apocalypse, that St. John wrote the Apoca-
lypse, that justification is by faith only, that our Lord
is God, that there are seventy-two generations between
Adam and our Lord. Now of which, out of all these
propositions, is he certain ? and to how many of them
is his assent of one and the same description? His
belief, that Scripture is commensurate with the Divine
Revelation, is perhaps implicit, not conscious ; as to
inspiration, he does not well know what the word means,
and his assent is scarcely more than a profession ; that
no doctrine is true but what can be proved from Scrip-
ture he understands, and his assent to it is what I have
called speculative ; that the Church has no authority he
holds with a real assent or belief; that the Church ia
condemned in the Apocalypse is a standing prejudice ;
that St. John wrote the Apocalypse is his opinion j that
justification is by faith only, he accepts, but scarcely can
be said to apprehend ; that our Lord is God perhaps he
is certain ; that there are seventy-two generations be-
tween Adam and Christ he accepts on credence. Yet, if
he were asked the question, he would most probably
answer that he was certain of the truth of '' Protestant-
ism,'^ though " Protestantism " means these things and
a hundred more all at once, and though he believes with
actual certitude only one of them all, — that indeed a
dogma of most sacred importance, but not the discovery
of Luther or Calvin. He would think it enough to say
that he was a foe to " Romanism " and " Socinianism,"
and to avow that he gloried in the Reformation. He
looks upon each of these religious professions, Protes-
Indefedibility of Certitude. 245
tantism, Romanism, Socinianism and Theism, merely as
units, as if they were not each made up of many ele-
ments, as if they had nothing in common, as if a transi-
tion from the one to the other involved a simple oblitera-
tion of all that had been as yet written on his mind, and
would be the reception of a new faith.
When, then, we are told that a man has changed
from one religion to another, the first question which we
have to ask, is, have the first and the second religions
nothing in common ? If they have common doctrines,
he has changed only a portion of his creed, not the
whole : and the next question is, has he ever made much
of any doctrines but such as are if otherwise common
to his new creed and his old ? what doctrines was he
cei'tain of among the old, and what among the new ?
Thus, of three Protestants, one becomes a Catholic, a
second a Unitarian, and a third an unbeliever : how is
this ? The first becomes a Catholic, because he assented,
as a Protestant, to the doctrine of our Lord's divinity,
with a real assent and a genuine conviction, and because
this certitude, taking possession of his mind, led him on
to welcome the Catholic doctrines of the Real Presence
and of the Theotocos, till his Protestantism fell off from
him, and he submitted himself to the Church. The
second became a Unitarian, because, proceding on the
principle that Scripture was the rule of faith and that a
man's private judgment was its rule of interpretation,
and finding that the doctrine of the Nicene and Athana-
sian Creeds did not follow by logical necessity from the
text of Scripture, he said to himself, " The word of God
has been made of none effect by the traditions of men,"
246 Certitude.
and therefore nothing was left for him but to profess
what he considered primitive Christianity, and to become
a Humanitarian. The third gradually subsided into in-
fidelity, because he started with the Protestant dogma,
cherished in the depths of his nature, that a priesthood
was a corruption of the simplicity of the Gospel. First,
then, he would protest against the sacrifice of the Mass ;
next he gave up baptismal regeneration, and the sacra-
mental principle; then he asked himself whether
dogmas were not a restraint on Christian liberty as well
as sacraments ; then came the question, what after all
was the use of teachers of religion ? why should any one
stand between him and his Maker ? After a time it
struck him, that this obvious question had to bo answered
by the Apostles, as well as by the Anglican clergy ; so
he came to the conclusion that the true and only reve-
lation of God to man is that which is written on the
heart. This did for a time, and he remained a Deist.
But then it occurred to him, that this inward moral law
was there within the breast, whether there was a God
or not, and that it was a roundabout way of enforcing
that law, to say that it came from God, and simply un-
necessary, considering it carried with it its own sacred
and sovereign authority, as our feelings instinctively
testified; and when he turned to look at the physical
world around him, he really did not see what scientific
proof there was there of the Being of God at all, and it
seemed to him as if all things would go on quite as well
as at present, without that hypothesis as with it ; so
he dropped it, and became apurus, j^utus Atheist.
Now the world will say, that in these three cases old
Indefectibility of Certitude. 247
certitudes were lost, and new were gained ; but it is
not so : each of the three men started with just one
certitude, as he would have himself professed, had he
examined himself narrowly ; and he carried it out and
carried it with him into a new system of belief. He
was true to that one conviction from first to last ; and
on looking back on the past, would perhaps insist upon
this, and say he had really been consistent all through,
when others made much of his great changes in religious
opinion. He has indeed made serious additions to his
initial ruling principle, but he has lost no conviction
of which he was originally possessed.
I will take one more instance. A man is converted
to the Catholic Church from his admiration of its reli-
gious system, and his disgust with Protestantism. That
admiration remains ; but, after a time, he leaves his
new faith, perhaps returns to his old. The reason, if
we may conjecture, may sometimes be this : he has
never believed in the Church's infallibility ; in her doc-
trinal truth he has believed, but in her infallibility, no.
He was asked, before he was received, whether he held
all that the Church taught, he replied he did ; but he
understood the question to mean, whether he held those
particular doctrines "which at that time the Church in
matter of fact formally taught,'' whereas it really meant
'^ whatever the Church then or at any future time
should teach." Thus, he never had the indispensable
and elementary faith of a Catholic, and was simply no
subject for reception into the fold of the Church. This
being the case, when the Immaculate Conception is
defined, he feels that it is something more than he
248 Certitude.
bargained for when lie became a Catholic, and accord-
ingly ho gives up his religious profession. The world
will say that he has lost his certitude of the divinity
of the Catholic Faith, but he never had it.
The first point to be ascertained, then, when we hear
of a change of religious certitude in another, is, what
the doctrines are on which his so-called certitude
before now and at present has respectively fallen. All
doctrines besides these were the accidents of his pro-
fession, and the indefectibility of certitude would not
be disproved, though he changed them every year.
There are few religions which have no points in com-
mon ; and these, whether true or false, when embraced
with an absolute conviction, are the pivots on which
changes take place in that collection of credences,
opinions, prejudices, and other assents, which make up
what is called a man's selection and adoption of a form
of religion, a denomination, or a Church. There have
been Protestants whose idea of enlightened Christianity
has been a strenuous antagonism to what they consider
the unmanliness and unreasonableness of Catholic
morality, an antipathy to the precepts of patience,
meekness, forgiveness of injuries, and chastity. All
this they have considered a woman's religion, the
ornament of monks, of the sick, the feeble, and the old.
Lust, revenge, ambition, courage, pride, these, they
have fancied, made the man, and want of them the
slave. No one could fairly accuse such men of any
great change of their convictions, or refer to them in
proof of the defectibility of certitude, if they were one
day found to have taken up the profession of Islam.
Indefectibility of Certitude. 249
And if this intercommunion of religions holds good,
even when the common points between them are but
errors held in common, much more natural will be the
transition from one religion to another, without injury
to existing certitudes, when the common points, the
objects of those certitudes, are truths; and still stronger
in that case and more constraining will be the sympathy,
with which minds that love truth, even when they have
surrounded it with error, will yearn towards the
Catholic faith, which contains within itself, and claims
as its own, all truth that is elsewhere to be found, and
more than all, and nothing but truth. This is the
secret of the influence, by which the Church draws to
herself converts from such various and conflicting re-
ligions. They come, not so much to lose what they have,
as to gain what they have not ; and in order that, by
means of what they have, more may be given to them.
St. Augustine tells us that there is no false teaching
without an intermixture of truth ; and it is by the light
of those particular truths, contained respectively in the
various religions of men, and by our certitudes about
them, which are possible wherever those truths are
found, that we pick our way, slowly perhaps, but surely,
into the One Religion which God has given, taking
our certitudes with us, not to lose, but to keep them
more securely, and to understand and love their objects
more perfectly.
Not even are idolaters and heathen out of the range
of some of these religious truths and their correlative
certitudes. The old Greek and Roman polytheists had,
as they show in their literature, clear and strong notions.
250 Certitude,
nay, vivid mental images, of a Particular Providence, of
the power of prayer, of the rule of Divine Governance,
of the law of conscience, of sin and guilt, of expiation
by means of sacrifices, and of future retribution : I will
even add, of the Unity and Personality of the Supreme
Being. This it is that throws such a maguificent light
over the Homeric poems, the tragic choruses, and the
Odes of Pindar; and it has its counterpart in the
philosophy of Socrates and of the Stoics, and in such
historians as Herodotus. It would be out of place to
speak confidently of a state of society which has passed
away, but at first sight it does not appear why the
truths which I have enumerated should not have re-
ceived as genuine and deliberate an assent on the part
of Socrates or Cleanthes, (of course with divine aids,
but they do not enter into this discussion,) as was
given to them by St. John or St. Paul, nay, an assent
which rose to certitude. Much more safely may it
be pronounced of a Mahometan, that he may have a
certitude of the Divine Unity, as well as a Christian ;
and of a Jew, that he may believe as truly as a Christian
in the resurrection of the body; and of a Unitarian
that he can give a deliberate and real assent to the fact
of a supernatural revelation, to the Christian miracles,
to the eternal moral law, and to the immortality of the
soul. And so, again, a Protestant may, not only in
words, but in mind and heart, hold, as if he were a
Catholic, with simple certitude, the doctrines of the
Holy Trinity, of the fall of man, of the need of re-
generation, of the efficacy of Divine Grace, and of th«
possibility and danger of falling away. And thus it ii
Indefedibility of Certitude, 251
conceivable that a man miglit travel in his religious
profession all the way from heathenism to Catholicity,
through Mahometanism, Judaism, Unitarianism, Pro-
testantism, and Anglicanism, without any one certitude
lost, but with a continual accumulation of truths, which
claimed from him and elicited in his intellect fresh and
fresh certitudes.
In saying all this, I do not forget that the same
doctrines, as held in different religions, may be and
often are held very differently, as belonging to distinct
wholes or forms, as they are called, and exposed to the
influence and the bias of the teaching, perhaps false,
with which they are associated. Thus, for instance,
whatever be the resemblance between St. Augustine's
doctrine of Predestination and the tenet of Calvin upon
it, the two really differ from each other toto coelo in sig-
nificance and effect, in consequence of the place they
hold in the systems in which they are respectively in-
corporated, just as shades and tints show so differently
in a painting according to the masses of colour to which
they are attached. But, in spite of this, a man may so
hold the doctrine of personal election as a Calvinist, as
to be able still to hold it as a Catholic.
However, I have been speaking of certitudes which
remain unimpaired, or rather confirmed, by a change of
religion ; on the contrary there are others, whether we
call them certitudes or convictions, which perish in the
change, as St. Paul's conviction of the sufficiency of the
Jewish Law came to an end on his becoming a Christian.
Now how is such a series of facts to be reconciled with
the doctrine which I have been enforcing ? What
252 Certitude.
conviction could be stronger than the faith of the Jews
in the perpetuity of the Mosaic system ? Those, then,
it may be said, who abandoned Judaism for the Gospel,
surely, in so doing, bore the most emphatic of testi-
monies to the defectibility of certitude. And, in like
manner, a Mahometan may be so deeply convinced that
Mahomet is the prophet of Grod, that it would be only
by a quibble about the meaning of the word " certitude"
that we could maintain, that, on his becoming a
Catholic, he did not unequivocally prove that certitude
is defectible. And it may be argued, perhaps, in the
case of some members of the Church of England, that
their faith in the validity of Anglican orders, and the
invisibility of the Church's unity, is so absolute, so
deliberate, that their abandonment of it, did they be-
come Catholics or sceptics, would be tantamount to the
abandonment of a certitude.
Now, in meeting this difficulty, I will not urge (lest
I should be accused of quibbling), that certitude is a
conviction of what is true, and that these so-called cer-
titudes have come to nought, because, their objects being
errors, not truths, they really were not certitudes at all ;
nor will I insist, as I might, that they ought to be
proved first to be something more than mere prejudices,
assents without reason and judgment, before they can
fairly be taken as instances of the defectibility of
certitude ; but I simply ask, as regards the zeal of the
Jews for the sufficiency of their law, (even though it
implied genuine certitude, not a prejudice, not a mere
conviction,) still was such zeal, such professed certitude,
found in those who were eventually converted, or in
hidefedibility of Certitude, 253
those who were not; for, if those who had not that
certitude became Christians and those who had it
remained Jews, then loss of certitude in the latter is not
instanced in the fact of the conversion of the former.
St. Paul certainly is an exception, but his conversion, as
also his after-life, was miraculous ; ordinarily speaking,
it was not the zealots who supplied members to the
Catholic Church, but those '' men of good will," who,
instead of considering the law as perfect and eternal,
" looked for the redemption of Israel,'^ and for " the
knowledge of salvation in the remission of sins.'" And,
in like manner, as to those learned and devout men
among the Anglicans at the present day, who come so
near the Church without acknowledging her claims, I
ask whether there are not two classes among them also,
— those who are looking out beyond their own body for
the perfect way, and those on the other hand who teach
that the Anglican communion is the golden mean
between men who believe too much and men who
believe too little, the centre of unity to which East and
West are destined to gravitate, the instrument and the
mould, as the Jews might think of their own moribund
institutions, through which the kingdom of Christ is to
be established all over the earth. And next I would
ask, which of these two classes supplies converts to the
Church ; for if they come from among those who never
professed to be quite certain of the special strength of
the Anglican position, such men cannot be quoted as
instances of the defectibility of certitude.
There is indeed another class of beliefs, of which I
must take notice, the failure of which may be taken at
2 54 Certitude.
first sight as a proof that certitude may be lost. Yet
they cleax'ly deserve no other name than prejudices, aa
being founded upon reports of facts, or on arguments,
which will not bear careful examination. Such was the
disgust felt towards our predecessors in primitive times,
the Christians of the first centuries, as a secret society,
as a conspiracy against the civil power, as a set of mean,
sordid, despicable fanatics, as monsters revelling in blood
and impurity. Such also is the deep prejudice now exist-
ing against the Church among Protestants, who dress
her up in the most hideous and loathsome images, which
rightly attach, in the prophetic descriptions, to the evil
spirit, his agents and instruments. And so of the number-
less calumnies directed against individual Catholics,
against our religious bodies and men in authority,
which serve to feed and sustain the suspicion and dislike
with which everything Catholic is regarded in this
country. But as a persistence in such prejudices is no
evidence of their truth, so an abandonment of them is
no evidence that certitude can fail.
There is yet another class of prejudices against the
Catholic Religion, which is far more tolerable and
intelligible than those on which I have been dwelling,
but still in no sense certitudes. Indeed, I doubt
whetherthey would be consideredmorethanpresumptive
opinions by the persons who entertain them. Such is
the idea which has possessed certain philosophers,
ancient and modern, that miracles are an infringement
and disfigurement of the beautiful order of nature.
Such, too, is the persuasion, common among political
and literary men, that the Catholic Church is inconsistent
Indefectibility of Certitude. 255
with the true interests of the human race, with social
progress, with rational freedom, with good government.
A renunciation of these imaginations is not a change in
certitudes.
So much on this subject. All concrete laws are general,
and persons, as such, do not fall under laws. Still, I
have gone a good way, as I think, to remove the
objections to the doctrine of the indefectibility of
certitude in matters of religion, though I cannot assign
to it an infallible token.
6.
One further remark may be made. Certitude does
not admit of an interior, immediate test, sufficient to
discriminate it from false certitude. Such a test is ren-
dered impossible from the circumstance that, when we
make the mental act expressed by " I know," we sum
up the whole series of reflex judgments which might,
each in turn, successively exercise a critical function
towards those of the series which precede it. But still,
if it is the general rule that certitude is indefectible,
will not that indefectibility itself become at least in the
event a criterion of the genuineness of the certitude ? or
is there any rival state or habit of the intellect, which
claims to be indefectible also ? A few words will suffice
to answer these questions.
Premising that all rules are but general, especially
those which relate to the mind, I observe that indefecti-
bility may at least serve as a negative test of certitude,
or sine qua non condition, so that whoever loses his
conviction on a given point is thereby proved not to
have been certain of it. Certitude ought to stand all
256 Certitude.
trials, or it is not certitude. Its very office is to cherish
and maintain its object, and its very lot and duty is to
sustain rude shocks in maintenance of it without being
damaged by them.
I will take an example. Let us suppose wo are told
on an unimpeachable authority, that a man whom we
saw die is now alive again and at his work, as it was his
wont to be; let us suppose we actually see him and
converse with him ; what will become of our certitude
of his death ? I do not think we should give it up ; how
could we, when we actually saw him die ? At first,
indeed, we should be thrown into an astonishment and
confusion so great, that the world would seem to reel
round us, and we should be ready to give up the use of
our senses and of our memory, of our reflective powers,
and of our reason, and even to deny our power of
thinking, and our existence itself. Such confidence have
we in the doctrine that when life goes it never returns.
Nor would our bewilderment be less, when the first blow
was over; but our reason would rally, and with our
reason our certitude would come back to us. Whatever
came of it, we should never cease to know and to confess
to ourselves both of the contrary facts, that we saw him
die, and that after dying we saw him alive again. The
overpowering strangeness of our experience would have
no power to shake our certitude in the facts which
created it.
Again, let us suppose, for argument's sake, that
ethnologists, philologists, anatomists, and antiquarians
agreed together in separate demonstrations that there
were half a dozen races of men, and that they were all
Indefectibility of Certitude. 257
descended from gorillas, or chimpanzees, or ourang-
outangs, or baboons; moreover, that Adam was an
historical personage, with a well-ascertained dwelling-
place, surroundings and date, in a comparatively modern
world. On the other hand, let me believe that the
Word of God Himself distinctly declares that there
were no men before Adam, that he was immediately
made out of the slime of the earth, and that he is the
first father of all men that are or ever have been. Here
is a contradiction of statements more direct than in the
• former instance ; the two cannot stand together ; one
or other of them is untrue. But whatever means I
might be led to take, for making, if possible, the an-
tagonism tolerable, I conceive I should never give up
my certitude in that truth which on sufficient grounds
I. determined to come from heaven. If I so believed, I
should not pretend to argue, or to defend myself to
others ; I should be patient ; I should look for better
daysj but I should still believe. If, indeed, I had
hitherto only half believed, if I believed with an assent
short of certitude, or with an acquiescence short of
assent, or hastily or on light grounds, then the case
would be altered ; but if, after full consideration, and
availing myself of my best lights, I did think that beyond
all question God spoke as I thought He did, philoso-
phers and experimentalists might take their course for
me, — I should consider that they and I thought and
reasoned in different mediums, and that my certitude
was as little in collision with them or damaged by them,
as if they attempted to counteract in some great matter
chemical action by the force of gravity, or to weigh
s
258 Certitude.
magnetic influence against capillary attraction. Of
course, I am putting an impossible case, for philo-
sophical discoveries cannot really contradict divine
revelation.
So much on the indefectibility of certitude ; as to the
question whether any other assent is indefectible besides
it, I think prejudice may be such ; but it cannot be
confused with certitude, for the one is an assent previous
to rational grounds, and the other an assent given
expressly after careful examination.
It seems then that on the whole there are three con-
ditions of certitude : that it follows on investigation
and proof, that it is accompanied by a specific sense of
intellectual satisfaction and repose, and that it is irre-
versible. If the assent is made without rational grounds,
it is a rash judgment, a fancy, or a prejudice; if without
the sense of finality, it is scarcely more than an infer-
ence; if without permanence, it is a mere conviction.
CHAPTER YIII.
INFERENCE.
§ 1. Formal Inference.
Infeeence is the conditional acceptance of a proposition.
Assent is the unconditional j the object of Assent is a
truth, the object of Inference is the truth-like or a
verisimilitude. The problem which I have undertaken
is that of ascertaining how it comes to pass that a
conditional act leads to an ud conditional ; and, having
now shown that assent really is unconditional, I proceed
to show how inferential exercises, as such, always must
be conditional.
We reason, when we hold this by virtue of that;
whether we hold it as evident or as approximating or
tending to be evident, in either case we so hold it
because of holding something else to be evident or
tending to be evident. In the next place, our reasoning
ordinarily presents itself to our mind as a simple act,
not a process or series of acts. We apprehend the
antecedent and then apprehend the consequent, without
8 2
26o Inference.
explicit recognition of the medium connecting the two,
as if by a sort of direct association of the first thought
with the second. We proceed by a sort of instinctive
perception, from premiss to conclusion. I call it in-
stinctive, not as if the faculty were one and the same
to all men in strength and quality (as we generally
conceive of instinct), but because ordinarily, or at least
often, it acts by a spontaneous impulse, as prompt and
inevitable as the exercise of sense and memory. We
perceive external objects, and we remember past events,
without knowing how we do so ; and in like manner we
reason without effort and intention, or any necessary
consciousness of the path which the mind takes in
passing from antecedent to conclusion.
Such is ratiocination, in what may be called a state of
nature, as it is found in the uneducated, — nay, in all
men, in its ordinary exercise; nor is there any antecedent
ground for determining that it will not be as correct in
its informations as it is instinctive, as trustworthy as are
sensible perception and memory, though its informations
are not so immediate and have a wider range. By
means of sense we gain knowledge directly ; by means
of reasoning we gain it indirectly, that is, by virtue of a
previous knowledge. And if we may justly regard the
universe, according to the meaning of the word, as one
whole, we may also believe justly that to know one part
of it is necessarily to know much more than that one
part. This thought leads us to a further view of
ratiocination. The proverb says, " Ex pede Herculem;^'
and we have actual experience how the practised
zoologist can build up some intricate organization from
Formal Inference. 261
the sight of its smallest bone, evoking the whole as if
it were a remembrance; how, again, a philosophical
antiquarian, by means of an inscription, interprets the
mythical traditions of former ages, and makes the past
live ; and how a Columbus is led, from considerations
which are common property, and fortuitous phenomena
which are successively brought to his notice, to have such
faith in a western world, as willingly to commit himself
to the terrors of a mysterious ocean in order to arrive at
it. That which the mind is able thus variously to bring
together into unity, must have some real intrinsic
connexion of part with part. But if this summa rerum
is thus one whole, it must be constructed on definite
principles and laws, the knowledge of which will enlarge
our capacity of reasoning about it in particulars ; — thus
we are led on to aim at determining on a large scale and
on system, what even gifted or practised intellects are
only able by their own personal vigour to reach piece-
meal and fitfully, that is, at substituting scientific
methods, such as all may use, for the action of individual
genius.
There is another reason for attempting to discover an
instrument of reasoning (that is, of gaining new truths
by means of old), which maybe less vague and arbitrary
than the talent and experience of the few or the common-
sense of the many. As memory is not always accurate,
and has on that account led to the adoption of writing,
as being a memoria technica, unaffected by the failure of
mental impressions, — as our senses at times deceive us,
and have to be corrected by each other; so is it also with
our reasoning faculty. The conclusions of one man are
262 Infei'ence.
not the conclusions of another ; those of the same man
do not always agree together ; those of ever so many
■who agree together may diflfer from the facts themselves,
which those conclusions are intended to ascertain. In
consequence it becomes a necessity, if it be possible, to
analyze the process of reasoning, and to invent a method
which may act as a common measure between mind and
mind, as a means of joint investigation, and as a
recognized intellectual standard, — a standard such as to
secure us against hopeless mistakes, and to emancipate
us from the capricious ?/pse dixit of authority.
As the index on the dial notes down the sun's course
in the heavens, as a key, revolving through the intricate
.wards of the lock, opens for us a treasure-house, so let
us, if we can, provide ourselves with some ready
expedient to serve as a true record of the system of
objective truth, and an available rule for interpreting its
phenomena ; or at least let us go as far as we can in
providing it. One such experimental key is the science
of geometry, which, in a certain department of nature,
substitutes a collection of true principles, fruitful and
interminable in consequences, fortheguesses,^ro re nata,
of our intellect, and saves it both the labour and the
risk of guessing. Another far more subtle and effective
instrument is algebraical science, which acts as a spell in
unlocking for us, without merit or effort of our own
individually, the arcana of the concrete physical universe
A more ambitious, because a more comprehensive con-
trivance still, for interpreting the concrete world is the
method of logical inference. What we desiderate is
something which may supersede the need of personal
I
Formal Inference. 263
gifts by a far-reaching and infallible rule. Now, with-
out external symbols to mark out and to steady its
course, the intellect runs wild; but wiiih the aid of
symbols, as in algebra, it advances with precision and
effect. Let then our symbols be words : let all thought
be arrested and embodied in words. Let language have
a monopoly of thought ; and thought go for only so much
as it can show itself to be worth in language. Let every
prompting of the intellect be ignored, every momentum
of argument be disowned, which is unprovided with an
equivalent wording, as its ticket for sharing in the
common search after truth. Let the authority of
nature, common-sense, experience, genius, go for
nothing. Eatiocination, thus restricted and put into
grooves, is what I have called Inference, and the science,
which is its regulating principle, is Logic.
The first step in the inferential method is to throw
the question to be decided into the form of a proposi-
tion ; then to throw the proof itself into propositions,
the force of the proof lying in the comparison of these
propositions with each other. When the analysis is
carried out fully and put into form, it becomes the
Aristotelic syllogism. However, an inference need not
be expressed thus technically j an enthymeme fulfils the
requirements of what I have called Inference. So does
any other form of words with the mere grammatical
expressions, "for," "therefore," "supposing," "so that,"
"similarly," and the like. Verbal reasoning, of whatever
kind, as opposed to mental, is what I mean by inference,
which differs from logic only inasmuch as logic is its
scientific form. And it will be more convenient here to
264 Inference.
use the two words indiscriminately, for I shall say
nothing about logic which does not in its substance also
apply to inference.
Logical inference, then, being such, and its office such
as I have described, the question follows, how far it
answers the purpose for which it is used. It proposes to
provide both a test and a common measure of reasoning ;
and I think it will be found partly to succeed and
partly to fail ; succeeding so far as words can in fact be
found for representing the countless varieties and sub-
tleties of human thought, failing on account of the fallacy
of the original assumption, that whatever can be thought
can be adequately expressed in words.
In the first place. Inference, being conditional, is
hampered with other propositions besides that which is
especially its own, that is, with the premisses as well as
the conclusion, and with the rules connecting the latter
with the former. It views its own proper proposition in
the medium of prior propositions, and measures it by
them. It does not hold a proposition for its own sake,
but as dependent upon others, and those others it
entertains for the sake of the conclusion. Thus it is
practically far more concerned with the comparison of
propositions, than with the propositions themselves.
It is obliged to regard all the propositions, with which
it has to do, not so much for their own sake, as for the
sake of each other, as regards the identity or likeness,
independence or dissimilarity, which has to bo mutually
predicated of them. It follows from this, that the more
simple and definite are the words of a proposition, andj
the narrower their meaning, and the more that meaning]
Foi'mal Inference. 265
in each proposition is restricted to the relation which it
has to the words of the other propositions compared
with it, — in other words, the nearer the propositions
concerned in the inference approach to being mental
abstractions, and the less they have to do with the
concrete reaUty, and the more closely they are made to
express exact, intelligible, comprehensible, communi-
cable notions, and the less they stand for objective
things, that is, the more they are the subjects, not of
real, but of notional apprehension, — so much the more
suitable do they become for the purposes of Inference.
Hence it is that no process of argument is so perfect,
as that which is conducted by means of symbols. In
Arithmetic 1 is 1, and just 1, and never anything else
but 1 ; it never is 2, it has no tendency to change its
meaning, and to become 2 ; it has no portion, quality,
admixture of 2 in its meaning. And 6 under all circum-
stances is 3 times 2, and the sum of 2 and 4; nor can
the whole world supply anything to throw doubt upon
these elementary positions. It is not so with language.
Take, by contrast, the word " inference," which I have
been using : it may stand for the act of inferring, as I
haveusedit; or for the connecting principle, orinferentia,
between premisses and conclusions; or for the conclusion
itself. And sometimes it will be difficult, in a particular
sentence, to say which it bears of these three senses.
And so again in Algebra, a is never x, or anything but
a, wherever it is found ; and a and 6 are always standard
quantities, to which x and y are always to be referred,
and by which they are always to be measured. In
Geometry again, the subjects of argument, points, lines.
266 Inference.
and surfaces, are precise creations of the mind, suggested
indeed by external objects, but meaning nothing but
what they are defined to mean : they have no colour, no
motion, no heat, no qualities which address themselves
to the ear or to the palate ; so that, in whatever combi-
nations or relations the words denoting them occur, and
to whomsoever they come, those words never vary in
their meaning, but are just of the same measure and
weight at one time and at another.
What is true of Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry,
is true also of Aristotelic argumentation in its typical
modes and figures. It compares two given words sepa-
rately with a third, and then determines 'how they stand
towards each other, in a hona fide identity of sense. In
consequence, its formal process is best conducted by
means of symbols. A, B, and C. While it keeps to
these, it is safe ; it has the cogency of mathematical
reasoning, and draws its conclusions by a rule as un-
erring as it is blind.
Symbolical notation, then, being the perfection of the
syllogistic method, it follows that, when words are
substituted for symbols, it will be its aim to circum-
scribe and stint their import as much as possible, lest
perchance A should not always exactly mean A, and B
mean B ; and to make them, as much as possible, the
calculi of notions, which are in our absolute power, as
meaning just what we choose them to mean, and as
little as possible the tokens of real things, which are out-
side of us, and which mean we do not know how much,
but so much certainly as may run away with us, in
proportion as we enter into them, beyond the range of
Formal Inference. 267
scientific management. The concrete matter of propo-
sitions is a constant source of trouble to syllogistic
reasoning, as marring the simplicity and perfection of
its process. Words, which denote things, have innu-
merable implications ; but in inferential exercises it is
the very triumph of that clearness and hardness of head,
■which is the characteristic talent for the art, to have
stripped them of all these connatural senses, to have
drained them of that depth and breadth o£ associations
which constitute their poetry, their rhetoric, and their
historical life, to have starved each term down till it has
become the ghost of itself, and everywhere one and the
same ghost, "omnibus umbra locis," so that it may
stand for just one unreal aspect of the concrete thing to
which it properly belongs, for a relation, a generaliza-
tion, or other abstraction, for a notion neatly turned out
of the laboratory of the mind, and sufficiently tame and
subdued, because existing only in a definition.
Thus it is that the logician for his own purposes,
and most usefully as far as those purposes are concerned,
turns rivers, full, winding, and beautiful, into navigable
canals. To him dog or horse is not a thing which he
sees, but a mere name suggesting ideas ; and by dog or
horse universal he means, not the aggregate of all indi-
vidual dogs or horses brought together, but a common
aspect, meagre but precise, of all existing or possible
dogs or horses, which all the while does not really corre-
spond to any one single dog or horse out of the whole
aggregate. Such minute fidelity in the representation
of individuals is neither necessary nor possible to his
art ; his business is not to ascertain facts in the con-
268 Inference.
Crete, but to find and dress up middle terms ; and,
provided they and the extremes which they go between
are not equivocal, either in themselves or in their use,
and he can enable his pupils to show well in a viva voce
disputation, or in a popular harangue, or in a written
dissertation, he has achieved the main purpose of his
profession.
Such are the characteristics of reasoning, viewed as a
science or scientific art, or inferential process, and we
might anticipate that, narrow as by necessity is its field
of view, for that reason its pretensions to be demon-
strative were incontrovertible. In a certain sense they
really are so ; while we talk logic, we are unanswerable ;
but then, on the other hand, this universal living scene
of things is after all as little a logical world as it is a
poetical ; and, as it cannot without violence be exalted
into poetical perfection, neither can it be attenuated into
a logical formula. Abstract can only conduct to ab-
stract ; but we have need to attain by our reasonings to
what is concrete ; and the margin between the abstract
conclusions of the science, and the concrete facts which
we wish to ascertain, will be found to reduce the force
of the inferential method from demonstration to the
mere determination of the probable. Thus, whereas
(as I have already said) Inference starts with conditions,
as starting with premisses, here are two reasons why,
when employed upon questions of fact, it can only con-
clude probabilities : first, because its premisses are
assumed, not proved ; and secondly, because its conclu-
sions are abstract, and not concrete. I will now con-
sider these two points separately.
Formal Inference, 269
Inference comes short of proof in concrete matters,
because it has not a full command over the objects to
which it relates, but merely assumes its premisses. In
order to complete the proof, we are thrown upon some
previous syllogism or syllogisms, in which the assump-
tions may be proved ; and then, still farther back, we
are thrown upon others again, to prove the new assump-
tions of that second order of syllogisms. Where is
this process to stop ? especially since it must run upon
separated, divergent, and multiplied lines of argument,
the farther the investigation is carried back. At length
a score of propositions present themselves, all to be proved
by propositions more evident than themselves, in order
to enable them respectively to become premisses to that
series of inferences which terminates in the conclusion
which we originally drew. But even now the difficulty
is not at an end ; it would be something to arrive at
length at premisses which are undeniable, however long
we might be in arriving at them ; but in this case the
long retrospection lodges us at length at what are
called first principles, the recondite sources of all know-
ledge, as to which logic provides no common measure
of minds, — which are accepted by some, rejected by
others, — in which, and not in the syllogistic exhibitions,
lies the whole problem of attaining to truth, — and which
are called self-evident by their respective advocates
because they are evident in no other way. One of
the two uses contemplated in reasoning by rule, or in
verbal argumentation, was, as I have said, to establish
2 JO Inference^
a standard of truth and to supersede the ifse dixit of
authority : how does it fulfil this end, if it only leads us
back to first principles, about which there is interminable
controversy ? We are not able to prove by syllogism
that there are any self-evident propositions at all ; but
supposing there are (as of course I hold there are), still
who can determine these by logic ? Syllogism, then,
though of course it has its use, still does only the
minutest and easiest part of the work, in the inves-
tigation of truth, for when there is any difficulty, that,
difficulty commonly lies in determining first principles,
not in the arrangement of proofs.
Even when argument is the most direct and severe of
its kind, there must be those assumptions in the process
which resolve themselves into the conditions of human
natui'e; but how many more assumptions does that
process in ordinary concrete matters involve, subtle
assumptions not directly arising out of these primary
conditions, but accompanying the course of reasoning,
step by step, and traceable to the sentiments of the
age, country, religion, social habits and ideas, of the
particular inquirers or disputants, and passing current
without detection, because admitted equally on all hands !
And to these must be added the assumptions which are
made from the necessity of the case, in consequence of
the prolixity and elaborateness of any argument which
should faithfully note down all the propositions which
go to make it up. We recognize this tediousness even
in the case of the theorems of Euclid, though mathe-
mktical proof is comparatively simple.
Logic then does not really prove ; it enables us
Formal Infe^'ence, 2*ji
join issue witli others ; it suggests ideas ; it opens views j
it maps out for us the lines of thought ; it verifies nega-
tively; it determines when differences of opinion are
hopeless ; and when and how far conclusions are pro-
bable; but for genuine proof in concrete matter we
require an organon more delicate, versatile, and elastic
than verbal argumentation.
I ought to give an illustration of what I have been
stating in general terms ; but it is difficult to do so
without a digression. However, if it must be, I look
round the room in which I happen to be writing, and
take down the first book which catches my eye. It is
an old volume of a Magazine of great name ; I open it at
random and fall upon a discussion about the then lately
discovered emendations of the text of Shakespeare. It
will do for my purpose.
In the account of Falstaff's death in " Henry Y."
(act ii. scene 3) we read, according to the received text,
the well-known words, " His nose was as sharp as a pen,
and 'a babbled of green fields." In the first authentic
edition, publishedin 1623, some years after ShakesDeare^s
death, the words, I believe, ran, " and a table of green
fields," which has no sense. Accordingly, an anonymous
critic, reported by Theobald in the last century, corrected
them to "and 'a talked of green fields." Theobald
himself improved the reading into " and 'a. babbled of
green fields," which since his time has been the received
text. But just twenty years ago an annotated copy of
the edition of 1 632 was found, annotated perhaps by a
contemporary, which, among as many as 20,000 correc-
272 Inference.
tions of the text, substituted for the corrupt reading of
1623, the words " on a table of green frieze/' which has
a suflBcient sense, though far less acceptable to an admirer
of Shakespeare, than Theobald's. The genuineness of
this copy with its annotations, as it is presented to us, I
shall here take for granted.
Now I understand, or at least will suppose, the
argument, maintained in the article of the Magazine in
question, to run thus : — " Theobald's reading, as at pre-
sent received, is to be retained, to the exclusion of the
text of 1623 and of the emendation made on the copy
of the edition of 1632 ; — to the exclusion of the text of
1623 because that text is corrupt; to the exclusion of
the annotation of 1632 because it is anonymous." I
wish it then observed how many large questions are
opened in the discussion which ensues, how many
recondite and untractable principles have to be settled,
and how impotent is logic, or any reasonings which
can be thrown into language, to deal with these
indispensable first principles.
The first position is, " The authoritative reading of
1623 is not to be restored to the received text, because
it is corrupt." Now are we to take it for granted, as a
first principle, which needs no proof, that a text may
be tampered with, because it is corrupt ? However the
corrupt reading arose, it is authoritative. It is found in
an edition, published by known persons, only six years
after Shakespeare's death, from his own manuscript,
as it appears, and with his corrections of earlier faulty
impressions. Authority cannot sanction nonsense, but
it can forbid critics from experimentalizing upon it. If
Formal Inference. 273
the text of Shakespeare is corrupt, it should be published
as corrupt.
I believe the best editors of the Greek tragedians
have given up the impertinence of introducing their
conjectures into the text ; and a classic like Shakespeare
has a right to be treated with the same respect as
^schylus. To this it will be replied, that Shakespeare
is for the general public and -^schylus for students of
a dead language ; that the run of men read for amuse-
ment or as a recreation, and that, if the editions of
Shakespeare were made on critical principles, thej
would remain unsold. Here, then, we are brought to
the question whether it is any advantage to read
Shakespeare except with the care and pains which a
classic demands, and whether he is in fact read at all by
those whom such critical exactness would offend ; and
thus we are led on to further questions about cultivation
of mind and the education of the masses. Further, the
question presents itself, whether the general admiration
of Shakespeare is genuine, whether it is not a mere
fashion, whether the multitude of men understand him
at all, whether it is not true that every one makes
much of him, because every one else makes much of
him. Can we possibly make Shakespeare light reading,
especially in this day of cheap novels, by ever so much
correction of his text ?
Now supposing this point settled, and the text of
1623 put out of court, then comes the claim of the
Annotator to introduce into Shakespeare^s text the
emendation made upon his copy of the edition of 1632 ;
why is he not of greater authority than Theobald, the
2 74 Inference.
inventor of the received reading, and his emendation of
more authority than Theobald's ? If the corrupt reading
must any how be got out of the way, why should not the
Annotator, rather than Theobald, determine its substi-
tute ? For what we know, the authority of the anony-
mous Annotator may be very great. There is nothing
to show that he was not a contemporary of the poet ;
and if so, the question arises, what is the character of his
emendations ? are they his own private and arbitrary
conjectures, or are they informations from those who
knew Shakespeare, traditions of the theatre, of the actors
or spectators of his plays ? Here, then, we are involved in
intricate questions which can only be decided by a minute
examination of the 20,000 emendations so industriously
brought together by this anonymous critic. But it is
obvious that a verbal argumentation upon 20,000 cor-
rections is impossible : there must be first careful pro-
cesses of perusal, classification, discrimination, selection,
which mainly are acts of the mind without the interven-
tion of language. There must be a cumulation of argu-
ments on one side and on the other, of which only the
heads or the results can be put upon paper. Next come
in questions of criticism and taste, with their recondite
and disputable premisses, and the usual deductions
from them, so subtle and difficult to follow. All this
being considered, am I wrong in saying that, though
controversy is both possible and useful at all times, yet
it is not adequate to this occasion; rather that that sum-
total of argument (whether for or against the Annotator)
•which is furnished by his numerous emendations, — or
what may be called the multiform, evidential fact, in
Formal Inference. 275
which the examination of these emendations results, —
requires rather to be photographed on the individual
mind as by one impression, than admits of delineation
for the satisfaction of the many in any known or
possible language, however rich in vocabulary and
flexible in structure ?
And now as to the third point which presents itself
for consideration, the claim of Theobald's emendation to
retain its place in the textus receptus. It strikes me
with wonder that an argument in its defence could have
been put forward to the following effect, viz. that true
though it be, that the Editors of 1 623 are of much higher
authority than Theobald, and that the Annotator^s reading
in the passage in question is more likely to be correct
than Theobald's, nevertheless Theobald's has by this
time acquired a prescriptive right to its place there, the
prescription of more than ahundred years; — thatusurpa-
tion has become legitimacy ; that Theobald's words have
sunk into the hearts of thousands ; that in fact they have
become Shakespeare's; that it would be a dangerous inno-
vation and an evil precedent to touch them. If we begin
an unsettlement of the popular mind, where is it to stop ?
Thus it appears, in order to do justice to the question
beforeus, wehaveto betake ourselves to the consideration
of myths, pious frauds, and other grave matters, which
introduce us into a sylva, dense and intricate, of first
principles and elementary phenomena, belonging to the
domains of archeology and theology. Nor is this all ;
when such views of the duty of garbling a classic are
propounded, they open upon us a long vista of sceptical
interrogations which go far to disparage the claims upon
T 2
276 Inference.
us, the genius, the very existence, of the great poet to
whose honour these views are intended to minister. For
perhaps, after all, Shakespeare is really but a collection
of many Theobalds, who have each of them a right to
his own share of him. There was a great dramatic
school in his day ; be was one of a number of first-rate
artists, — perhaps they wrote in common. How are we
to know what is his, or how much ? Are the best parts
his, or the worst ? It is said that the players put in
what is vulgar and offensive in his writings ; perhaps
they inserted the beauties. I have heard it urged years
ago, as an objection to Sheridan's claim of authorship to
the plays which bear his name, that they were so unlike
each other; is not this the very peculiarity of those
imputed to Shakespeare ? Were ever the writings of
one man so various, so impersonal ? can we form any one
true idea of what he was in history or character, by means
of them ? is he not in short ** vox et prceterea nihil" ?
Then again, in corroboration, is there any author's life
so deficient in biographical notices as his ? We know
about Hooker, Spenser, Spelman, Raleigh, Harvey, his
contemporaries : what do we know of Shakespeare ? Is
he much more than a name ? Is not the traditional
object of an Englishman's idolatry after all a nebula of
genius, destined, like Homer, to be resolved into its
separate and independent luminaries, as soon as we have
a criticism powerful enough for the purpose ? I must
not be supposed for a moment to countenance such scep-
ticism myself, — though it is a subject worthy the atten-
tion of a sceptical ago : here I have introduced it simply
to suggest how many words go to make up a thoroughly
Formal Inference. 277
valid argument ; tow short and easy a way to a true
conclusion is the logic of good sense ; how little syllo-
gisms have to do with the formation of opinion ; how
little depends upon the inferential proofs^ and how much
upon those pre-existing beliefs and views, in which men
either already agree with each other or hopelessly differ,
before they begin to dispute, and which are hidden
deep in our nature, or, it may be, in our personal
peculiarities.
So much on the multiplicity of assumptions, which
in spite of formal exactness, logical reasoning in concrete
matters is forced to admit, and on the consequent uncer-
tainty which attends its conclusions. Now I come to
the second reason why its conclusions are thus wanting
in precision.
In this world of sense we have to do with things, far
more than with notions. We are not solitary, left to
the contemplation of our own thoughts and their legiti-
mate developments. We are surrounded by external
beings, and our enunciations are directed to the concrete*
We reason in order to enlarge our knowledge of matters,
which do not depend on us for being what they are.
But how is an exercise of mind, which is for the most
part occupied with notions, not things, competent to
deal with things, except partially and indirectly ? This
is the main reason why an inference, however fully
worded, (except perhaps in some peculiar cases, which
are out of place here,) never can reach so far as to ascer-
tain a fact. As I have already said, arguments about
278 Inference.
the abstract cannot handle and determine the concrete.
They may approximate to a proof, but they only reach
the probable, because they cannot reach the particular.
Even in mathematical physics a margin is left for
possible imperfection in the investigation. When the
planet Neptune was discovered, it was deservedly con-
sidered a triumph of science, that abstract reasonings
had done so much towards determining the planet and
its orbit. There would have been no triumph in success,
had there been no hazard of failure ; it is no triumph to
Euclid, in pure mathematics, that the geometrical
conclusions of his second book can be worked out and
verified by algebra.
The motions of the heavenly bodies are almost mathe-
matical in their precision ; but there is a multitude of
matters, to which mathematical science is applied,
which are in their nature intricate and obscure, and
require that reasoning by rule should be completed by the
living mind. Who would be satisfied with a navigator
or engineer, who had no practice or experience whereby
to carry on his scientific conclusions out of their native
abstract into the concrete and the real ? What is the
meaning of the distrust, which is ordinarily felt, of
speculators and theorists but this, that they are dead to
the necessity of personal prudence and judgment to
qualify and complete their logic ? Science, working by S
itself, reaches truth in the abstract, and probability in the \
concrete ; but what we aim at is truth in the concrete.
This is true of other inferences besides mathematical. ;
They come to no definite conclusions about matters of|
fact, except as they are made efi'ectual for their purpose
Formal Inference. 2 79
by the living intelligence wliicli uses them. " All men
have their price ; Fabricius is a man ; he has his price ;"
but he had not his price ; how is this ? Because he is
more than a universal ; because he falls under other
universals ; because universals are ever at war with each
other; because what is called a universal is only a
general ; because what is only general does not lead to
a necessary conclusion. Let us judge him by another
universal. '^Men have a conscience; Fabricius is a
man; he has a conscience." Until we have actual
experience of Fabricius, we can only say, that, since he
is a man, perhaps he will take a bribe, and perhaps he
will not. '^ Latet dolus in generalibus -," they are
arbitrary and fallacious, if we take them for more than
broad views and aspects of things, serving as our notes
and indications for judging of the particular, but not
absolutely touching and determining facts.
Let units come first, and (so-called) universals second;
let universals minister to units, not units be sacrificed to
universals. John, Richard, and Robert are individual
things, independent, incommunicable. We may find
some kind of common measure between them, and we
may give it the name of man, man as such, the typical
man, the auto-anthropos. We are justified in so doing,
and in investing it with general attributes, and bestowing
on it what we consider a definition. . But we think we
may go on to impose our definition on the whole race,
and to every member of it, to the thousand Johns,
Richards, and Roberts who are found in it. No ; each
of them is what he is, in spite of it. Not any one of
them is man, as such, or coincides with the auto-anthropos.
28o Inference.
Another John is not necessarily rational, because " all
men are rational/' for he may be an idiot ; — nor because
"man is a being of progress," does the second Richard
progress, for he may be a dunce ; — nor, because " man is
made for society," must we therefore go on to deny
that the second Robert is a gipsy or a bandit, as he
is found to be. There is no such thing as stereotyped
humanity; it must ever be a vague, bodiless idea,
because the concrete units from which it is formed are
independent realities. General laws are not inviolable
truths ; much less are they necessary causes. Since, as
a rule, men are rational, progressive, and social, there is a
high probability of this rule being true in the case of a
particular person ; but we must know him to be sure of it.
Each thing has its own nature and its own history.
When the nature and the history of many things are
similar, we say that they have the same nature; but
there is no such thing as one and the same nature ; they
are each of them itself, not identical, but like. A law is
not a fact, but a notion. " All men die ; therefore Elias
has died ;" but he has not died, and did not die. He
was an exception to the general law of humanity ; so
far, he did not come under that law, but under the law
(so to say) of Elias. It was the peculiarity of his^
individuality, that he left the world without dying :
what right have we to subject the person of Elias to the
scientific notion of an abstract humanity, which we have
formed without asking his leave ? Why must tl
tyrant majority find a rule for his individual history!
" Bat all men are mortal ?'' not so ; what is really meant
by this universal is, that " man, as such, is mortal," thai
Forma I Infere7ice. 281
is, the abstract, typical auto-anthropos ; to this major
premiss the minor, if Elias is to be proved mortal,
ought to be, " Elias was the abstract man ; " but he
was not, and could not be such, nor could any one
else, any more than the average man of an Insurance
Company is every individual man who insures his life
with it. Such a syllogism proves nothing about the
veritable Elias, except in the way of antecedent pro-
bability. If it be said that Elias was exempted from
death, not by nature, but by miracle, what is this to
the purpose, undeniable as it is ? Still, to have this
miraculous exemption was the personal prerogative of
Elias. We call it miracle, because God ordinarily acts
otherwise. He who causes men in general to die, gave
to Elias not to die. This miraculous gift comes into the
indi\'iduality of Elias. On this individuality we must
fix our thoughts, and not begin our notion of him by
ignoring it. He was a man, and something more than
"man^'; and if we do not take this into account, we
fall into an initial error in our thoughts of him.
"VYhat is true of Elias is true of every one in his own
place and degree. We call rationality the distinction of
man, when compared with other animals. This is true
in logic ; but in fact a man differs from a brute, not in
rationality only, but in all that he is, even in those
respects in which he is most like a brute ; so that his
whole self, his bones, limbs, make, life, reason, moral
feeling, immortality, and all that he is besides, is his
real differentia, in contrast to a horse or a dog. And in
like manner as regards John and Eichard, when compared
with one another ; each is himself, and nothing else, and.
282 Inference.
thoagh, regarded abstractedly, the two may fairly bo
said to have something in common, (viz. that abstract
sameness which does not exist at all,) yet strictly
speaking, they have nothing in common, for each of
them has a vested interest in all that he himself is ; and,
moreover, what seems to be common in the two, becomes
in fact so uncommon, so sui simile, in their respective
individualities — the bodily frame of each is so singled
out from all other bodies by its special constitution,
sound or weak, by its vitality, activity, pathological
history and changes, and, again, the mind of each is so
distinct from all other minds, in disposition, powers, and
habits, — that, instead of saying, as logicians say, that the
two men differ only in number, we ought, I repeat, rather
to say that they differ from each other in all that they
are, in identity, in incommunicability, in personality.
Nor does any real thing admit, by any calculus of
logic, of being dissected into all the possible general
notions which it admits, nor, in consequence, of being
recomposed out of them ; though the attempt thus to
treat it is more unpromising in proportion to the
intricacy and completeness of its make. We cannot see
through any one of the myriad beings which make up
the universe, or give the full catalogue of its belongings.
We are accustomed, indeed, and rightly, to speak of the
Creator Himself as incomprehensible ; and, indeed. He
is so by an incommunicable attribute ; but in a certain
sense each of His creatures is incomprehensible to ua
also, in the sense that no one has a perfect understanding
of them but He. We recognize and appropriate aspects]
of them, and logic is useful to us in registering these
Formal Inference. 283
aspects and what they imply ; but it does not give us to
know even one individual being.
So much on logical argumentation; and in thus speak-
ing of the syllogism, I speak of all inferential processes
whatever, as expressed in language, (if they are such as
to be reducible to science,) for they all require general
notions, as conditions of their coming to a conclusion.
Thus, in the deductive argument, '^Europe has no
security for peace, till its large standing armies in its
separate states are reduced ; for a large standing army
is in its very idea provocative of war," the conclusion is
only probable, for it may so be that in no country is that
pure idea realized, but in every country in concrete fact
there may be circumstances, political or social, which
destroy the abstract dangerousness.
So, too, as regards Induction and Analogy, as modes
of Inference ; for, whether I argue, " This place will
have the cholera, unless it is drained ; for there are a
number of well-ascertained cases which point to this
conclusion ;" or, " The sun will rise to-morrow, for it
rose to-day ;" in either method of reasoning I appeal, in
order to prove a particular case, to a general principle or
law, which has not force enough to warrant more than a
probable conclusion. As to the cholera, the place in
question may have certain antagonist advantages, which
anticipate or neutraHze the miasma which is the principle
of the poison ; and as to the sun's rising to-morrow,
there was a first day of the sun's rising, and therefore
there may be a last.
This is what I have to say on formal Inference, when
284 Inference,
taken to represent Ratiocination. Science in all its
departments has too mucli simplicity and exactness,
from tlie nature of the case, to be the measure of fact.
In its very perfection lies its incompetency to settLe
particulars and details. As to Logic, its chain of con-
clusions hangs loose at both ends ; both the point from
which the proof should start, and the points at which it
should arrive, are beyond its reach ; it comes short both
of first principles and of concrete issues. Even its most
elaborate exhibitions fail to representadequately the sum-
total of considerations by which an individual mind is
determined in its judgment of things ; even its most
careful combinations made to bear on a conclusion want
that steadiness of aim which is necessary for hitting it.
As I said when I began, thought is too keen and
manifold, its sources are too remote and hidden, its
path too personal, delicate, and circuitous, its subject-
matter too various and intricate, to admit of the tram-
mels of any language, of whatever subtlety and of
whatever compass.
Nor is it any disparagement of the proper value of
formal reasonings thus to speak of them. That they
cannot proceed beyond probabilities is most readily
allowed by those who use them most. Philosophers,
experimentalists, lawyers, in their several ways, have
commonly the reputation of being, at least on moral and
religious subjects, hard of belief ; because, proceeding in
the necessary investigation by the analytical method of
verbal inference, they find within its limits no sufficient
resources for attaining a conclusion. Nay, they do not
always find it possible in their own special province
Formal Inference. 285
severally ; for, even when in their hearts they have no
doubt about a conclusion, still often, from the habit of
their minds, they are reluctant to own it, and dwell upon
the deficiencies of the evidence, or the possibility of error,
because they speak by rule and by book, though they
judge and determine by common-sense.
Every exercise of nature or of art is good in its place ;
and the uses of this logical inference are manifold. It
is the great principle of order in our thinking; it
reduces a chaos into harmony ; it catalogues the ac-
cumulations of knowledge; it maps out for us the
relations of its separate departments ; it puts us in the
way to correct its own mistakes. It enables the' in-
dependent intellects of many, acting and re-acting on
each other, to bring their collective force to bear upon
one and the same subject-matter, or the same question.
If language is an inestimable gift to man, the logical
faculty prepares it for our use. Though it does not go
so far as to ascertain truth, still it teaches us the
direction in which truth lies, and how propositions lie
towards each other. Nor is it a slight benefit to know
what is probable, and what is not so, what is needed
for the proof of a point, what is wanting in a theory,
how a theory hangs together, and what will follow, if it
be admitted. Though it does not itself discover the
unknown, it is one principal way by which discoveries
are made. Moreover, a course of argument, which is
simply conditional, will point out when and where
experiment and observation should be applied, or testi-
mony sought for, as often happens both in physical and
legal questions. A logical hypothesis is the means of
286 Inference.
holding facts together, explaining diflBculties, and
reconciling the imagination to what is strange. And,
again, processes of logic are useful as enabling us to
get over particular stages of an investigation speedily
and surely, as on a journey we now and then gain
time by travelling by night, make short cuts when
the high-road winds, or adopt water-carriage to avoid
fatigue.
But reasoning by rule and in words is too natural to
us, to admit of being regarded merely in the light of
utility. Our inquiries spontaneously fall into scientific
sequence, and we think in logic, as we talk in prose,
without aiming at doing so. However sure we are of
the accuracy of our instinctive conclusions, we as in-
stinctively put them into words, as far as we can ; as
preferring, if possible, to have them in an objective
shape which we can fall back upon, — first for our own
satisfaction, then for our justification with others. Such
a tangible defence of what we hold, inadequate as it
necessarily is, considered as an analysis of our ratioci-
nation in its length and breadth, nevertheless is in such
sense associated with our holdings, and so fortifies and
illustrates them, that it acts as a vivid apprehension
acts, giving them luminousness and force. Thus in-
ference becomes a sort of symbol of assent, and even
bears upon action.
I have enlarged on these obvious considerations, lest
I should seem paradoxical ; but they do not impair the
main position of this Section, that Inference, considered
in the sense of verbal argumentation, determines neither
our principles, nor our ultimate judgments, — that it is
Formal Inference. 287
neither the test of truth, nor the adequate basis of
assent.'
^ I have assumed throughout this Section that all verbal argumenta-
tion is ultimately syllogistic ; and in consequence that it ever requires
universal propositions and comes short of concrete fact. A friend refers
me to the dispute between Des Cartes and Gassendi, the latter main-
taining against the former that " Cogito ergo sum " implies the uni-
versal '• All who think exist." I should deny this with Des Cartes ; but
I should say (as indeed he said), that his dictum was not an argument,
but was the expression of a ratiocinative instinct, as I explain below
under the head of " Natural Logic."
As to the instance " Brutes are not men : therefore men are not
brutes," there seems to me no consequence here, neither a prmter nor a
propter, but a tautology. And as to " It was either Tom or Dick that
did it ; it was not Dick, ergo," this may be referred to the one great
principle on which all logical reasoning is founded, but really it ought
not to be accounted an inference any more than if I broke a biscuit,
flung half away, and then said of the other half, " This is what remains."
It does but state a fact. So, when the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd proposition of
Euclid II. is put before the eyes in a diagram, a boy, before he yet has
learned to reason, sees with his eyes the fact of the thesis, and this seeing
it even makes it difficult for him to master the mathematical proof.
Here, then, &fact is stated in the form of an argument.
However, I have inserted parentheses at pp. 277 and 283, in order to
say " transeat " to the question.
288 Inference.
§ 2. Informal Inference.
It is plain that formal logical sequence is not in fact
the method by which we are enabled to become certain
of what is concrete; and it is equally plain, from what
has been already suggested, what the real and necessary
method is. It is the cumulation of probabilities, in-
dependent of each other, arising out of the nature and
circumstances of the particular case which is under
review ; probabilities too fine to avail separately, too
subtle and circuitous to be convertible into syllogisms,
too numerous and various for such conversion, even were
they convertible. As a mane's portrait differs from a
sketch of him, in having, not merely a continuous
outline, but all its details filled in, and shades and
colours laid on and harmonized together, such is the
multiform and intricate process of ratiocination, neces-
sary for our reaching him as a concrete fact, compared
with the rude operation of syllogistic treatment.
Let us suppose I wish to convert an educated,
thoughtful Protestant, and accordingly present for his
acceptance a syllogism of the following kind : — '^,All
Protestants are bound to join the Church ; you are
a Protestant : ergo.*' He answers, we will say, by
I
Informal Inference. 289
denying both premisses ; and lie does so by means of
arguments, which branch out into other arguments, and
those into others, and all of them severally requiring to
be considered by him on their own merits, before the
syllogism reaches him, and in consequence mounting up,
taken altogether, into an array of inferential exercises
large and various beyond calculation. Moreover, he is
bound to submit himself to this complicated process from
the nature of the case ; he would act rashly, if he did
not ; for he is a concrete individual unit, and being so,
is under so many laws, and is the subject of so many
predications all at once, that he cannot determine, off-
hand, his position and his duty by the law and the
predication of one syllogism in particular. I mean he
may fairly say, " Distiuguo," to each of its premisses :
he says, " Protestants are bound to join the Church, —
under circumstances,^' and '' I am a Protestant— in a
certain sense ; " and therefore the syllogism, at first
sight, does not touch him at all.
Before, then, he grants the major, he asks whether all
Protestants really are bound to join the Church — are
they bound in case they do not feel themselves bound;
if they are satisfied that their present religion is a safe
one ; if they are sure it is true ; if, on the other hand,
they have grave doubts as to the doctrinal fidelity and
purity of the Church; if they are convinced that the
Church is corrupt ; if their conscience instinctively
rejects certain of its doctrines; if history convinces
them that the Pope^s power is not ^xire divino, but
merely in the order of Providence ? if, again, they
are in a heathen country where priests are not ? or
u
290 Inference,
where the only priest who is to be found exacts of them,
as a condition of their reception^ a profession, which the
Creed of Pope Pius IV. says nothing about; for instance,
that the Holy See is fallible even when it teaches, or
that the Temporal Power is an an ti- Christian corruption ?
On one or other of such grounds he thinks he need not
change his religion ; but presently he asks himself, Can
a Protestant be in such a state as to be really satisfied
with his religion, as he has just now been professing ?
Can he possibly believe Protestantism came from above,
as a whole ? how much of it can he believe came from
above ? and, as to that portion which he feels did come
from above, has it not all been derived to him from the
Church, when traced to its source ? Is not Protestantism
in itself a negation ? Did not the Church exist before
it? and can he be sure, on the other hand, that anyone
of the Church's doctrines is not from above ? Further,
he finds he has to make up his mind what is a corruption,
and what are the tests of it ; what he means by a
religion ; whether it is obligatory to profess any religion
in particular; what are the standards of truth and
falsehood in religion ; and what are the special claims
of the Church.
And so, again, as to the minor premiss, perhaps he
will answer, that he is not a Protestant ; that he is a
Catholic of the early undivided Church ; that he is a
Catholic, but not a Papist. Then he has to determine
questions about division, schism, visible unity, what is
essential, what is desirable; about provisional states; as
to the adjustment of the Church's claims with those of
personal judgment and responsibility ; as to the soul of
Informal Inference. 291
the Churcli contrasted with the body ; as to degrees of
proof, and the degree necessary for his conversion ; as
to what is called his providential position, and the
responsibility of change; as to the sincerity of his
purpose to follow the Divine Will, whithersoever it
may lead him ; as to his intellectual capacity of investi-
gating such questions at all.
None of these questions, as they come before him,
admit of simple demonstration ; but each carries with it
a number of independent probable arguments, suflScient,
when united, for a reasonable conclusion about itself.
And first he determines that the questions are such as he
personally, with such talents or attainments as he has,
may fairly entertain; and then he goes on, after delibe-
ration, to form a definite judgment upon them; and
determines them, one way or another, in their bearing on
the bald syllogism which was originally offered to his
acceptance. And, we will say, he comes to the conclusion,
that he ought to accept it as true in his case ; that he is
a Protestant in such a sense, of such a complexion, of
such knowledge, under such circumstances, as to be called
upon by duty to join the Church ; that this is a
conclusion of which he can be certain, and ought to be
certain, and that he will be incurring grave responsi-
bility, if he does not accept it as certain, and act upon
the certainty of it. And to thi^ conclusion he comes,
as is plain, not by any possible verbal enumeration of
all the considerations, minute but abundant, delicate but
effective, which unite to bring him to it; but by a
mental comprehension of the whole case, and a discern-
ment of its upshot, sometimes after much deliberation,
u 2
292 Inference.
but, it may be, by a clear and rapid act of the intellect,
always, however, by an unwritten summing-up, some-
thing like the summation of the terms, i^liis and minus
of an algebraical series.
This I conceive to be the real method of reasoning in
concrete matters; and it has these characteristics: —
First, it does not supersede the logical form of inference,
but is one and the same with it ; only it is no longer an
abstraction, but carried out into the realities of life, its
premisses being instinct with the substance and the
momentum of that mass of probabilities, which, acting
upon each other in correction and confirmation, carry
it home definitely to the individual case, which is its
original scope.
Next, from what has been said it is plain, that such
a process of reasoning is more or less implicit, and
without the direct and full advertence of the mind
exercising it. As by the use of our eyesight we re-
cognize two brothers, yet without being able to express
what it is by which we distinguish them ; as at first
sight we perhaps confuse them together, but, on better
knowledge, we see no likeness between them at all; as
it requires an artist's eye to determine what lines and
shades make a countenance look young or old, amiable,
thoughtful, angry or conceited, the principle of dis-
crimination being in each case real, but implicit ; — so is
the mind unequal to a complete analysis of the motives
which cany it on to a particular conclusion, and is
swayed and determined by a body of proof, which it
recognizes only as a body,and not in its constituent parts.
And thirdly, it is plain, that, in this investigation of
Informal Inference. 293
the method of concrete inference, we have not advanced
one step towards depriving inference of its conditional
character; for it is still as dependent on premisses^ as it
is in its elementary idea. On the contrary, we have
rather added to the obscurity of the problem; for a
syllogism is at least a demonstration, when the premisses
are granted, but a cumulation of probabilities, over and
above their implicit character, will vary both in their
number and their separate estimated value, according to
the particular intellect which is employed upon it. It
follows that what to one intellect is a proof is not so to
another, and that the certainty of a proposition does
properly consist in the certitude of the mind which
contemplates it. And this of course may be said
without prejudice to the objective truth or falsehood of
propositions, since it does not follow that these pro-
positions on the one hand are not true, and based on
right reason, and those on the other not false, and
based on false reason, because not all men discriminate
them in the same way.
Having thus explained the view which I would take
of reasoning in the concrete, viz, that, from the nature
of the case, and from the constitution of the human
mind, certitude is the result of arguments which, taken
in the letter, and not in their full implicit sense, are but
probabilities, I proceed to dwell on some instances and
circumstances of a phenomenon which seems to me as
undeniable as to many it may be perplexing.
294 Inference.
1.
Let us take three instances belonging respectively to
the present, the past, and the future.
1 . We are all absolutely certain, beyond the possibility
of doubt, that Great Britain is an island. We give to
that proposition our delibei-ate and unconditional ad-
hesion. There is no security on which we should be
better content to stake our interests, our property, our
welfare, than on the fact that we are living in an island.
We have no fear of any geographical discovery which
may reverse our belief. We should be amused or angry
at the assertion, as a bad jest, did any one say that we
were at this time joined to the main-land in Norway or
in France, though a canal was cut across the isthmus.
We are as little exposed to the misgiving, " Perhaps we
are not on an island after all," as to the question, " Is it
quite certain that the angle in a semi-circle is a right-
angle ? '' It is a simple and primary truth with us, if
any truth is such; to believe it is as ligitimate an
exercise of assent, as there are legitimate exercises of
doubt or of opinion. This is the position of our minds
towards our insularity ; yet are the arguments produci-
ble for it (to use the common expression) in black and
white commensurate with this overpowering certitude
about it ?
Our reasons for believing that we are circumnavigable
are such as these : — first, we have been so taught in our
childhood, and it is so in all the maps ; next, we have
never heard it contradicted or questioned ; on the con-
InfoJ^mal Inference . 295
trary, every one whom we have heard speak on the
subject of Great Britain^ every book we have read,
invariably took it for granted; our whole national
history, the routine transactions and current events of
the country, our social and commercial system, our
political relations with foreigners, imply it in one way
or another. Numberless facts, or what we consider
facts, rest on the truth of it ; no received fact rests on
its being otherwise. If there is anywhere a junction
between us and the continent, where is it ? and how do
we know it ? is it in the north or in the south ? There
is a manifest reductio ad absurdum attached to the notion
that we can be deceived on such a point as this.
However, negative arguments and circumstantial
evidence are not all, in such a matter, which we have a
right to require. They are not the highest kind of
proof possible. Those who have circumnavigated the
island have a right to be certain : have we ever ourselves
even fallen in with any one who has ? And as to the
common belief, what is the proof that we are not all of
us believing it on the credit of each other ? And then,
when it is said that every one believes it, and every-
thing implies it, how much comes home to me personally
of this " every one " and " everything '■*? The question
is, Why do I believe it myself? A living statesman is
said to have fancied Demerara an island ; his belief was
an impression ; have we personally more than an
impression, if we view the matter argumentatively, a
lifelong impression about Great Brittain, like the belief,
so long and so widely entertained, that the earth was
immovable, and the sun careered round it ? I am not
296 Inference.
at all insinuating that we are not rational in our
certitude ; I only mean that we cannot analyze a proof
satisfactorily, the result of which good sense actually
guarantees to us.
2. Father Hardouin maintained that Terence's Plays,
Virgil's '^-^neid," Horace's Odes, and the Histories of
Livy and Tacitus, were the forgeries of the monks of the
thirteenth century. That he should be able to argue in
behalf of such a position, shows of course that the proof
in behalf of the received opinion is not overwhelming.
That is, we have no means of inferring absolutely, that
Virgil's episode of Dido, or of the Sibyl, and Horace's
" Te quoque mensorem " and " Quem tu Melpomene,"
belong to that Augustan age, which owes its celebrity
mainly to those poets. Our common-sense, however,
believes in their genuineness without any hesitation or
reserve, as if it had been demonstrated, and not in pro-
portion to the available evidence in its favour, or the
balance of arguments.
So much at first sight ; — but what are our grounds
for dismissing thus summarily, as we are likely to do, a
theory such as Hardouin's ? For let it be observed
first, that all knowledge of the Latin classics comes to us
from the medieval transcriptions of them, and they who
transcribed them had the opportunity of forging or
garbling them. We are simply at their mercy ; for
neither by oral transmission, nor by monumental in-
scriptions, nor by contemporaneous manuscripts are the
works of Virgil, Horace, and Terence, of Livy and
Tacitus, brought to our knowledge. The existing copies,
whenever made, are to us the autographic originals.
Informal Inference. 297
Next, it must be considered, that the numerous re-
ligious bodies, then existing over the face of Europe,
had leisure enough, in the course of a century, to
compose, not only all the classics, but all the Fathers
too. The question is, whether they had the ability.
This is the main point on which the inquiry turns, or
at least the most obvious ; and it forms one of those
arguments, which, from the nature of the case, are felt
rather than are convertible into syllogisms. Hardouin
allows that the Georgics, Horace's Satires and Epistles,
and the whole of Cicero, are genuine : we have a standard
then in these undisputed compositions of the Augustan
age. We have a standard also, in the extant medieval
works, of what the thirteenth century could do ; and we
see at once how widely the disputed works differ from
the medieval. Now could the thirteenth century simu-
late Augustan writers better than the Augustan could
simulate such writers as those of the thirteenth ? No.
Perhaps, when the subject is critically examined, the
question may be brought to a more simple issue ; but as
to our personal reasons for receiving as genuine the
whole of Virgil, Horace, Livy, Tacitus, and Terence,
they are summed up in our conviction that the monks
had not the ability to write them. That is, we take for
granted that we are sufficiently infoi*med about the
capabilities of the human mind, and the conditions of
genius, to be quite sure that an age which was fertile in
great ideas and in momentous elements of the future,
robust in thought, hopeful in its anticipations, of
singular intellectual curiosity and acumen, and of high
genius in at least one of the fine arts, could not, for the
298 Inference.
very reason of its pre-erainence in its own line, have an
equal pre-eminence in a contrary one. We do not
pretend to be able to draw the line between what the
medieval intellect could or could not do ; but we feel
sure that at least it could not write the classics. An
instinctive sense of this, and a faith in testimony, are
the sufficient, but the undeveloped argument on which
to ground our certitude.
I will add, that, if we deal with arguments in the mere
letter, the question of the authorship of works in any
case has much difficulty. I have noticed it in the in-
stance of Shakespeare, and of Newton. We are all
certain that Johnson wrote the prose of Johnson, and
Pope the poetry of Pope ; but what is there but pre-
scription, at least after contemporaries are dead, to
connect together the author of the work and the owner
of the name ? Our lawyers prefer the examination of
present witnesses to affidavits on paper; but the tradition
of " testimonia/' such as are prefixed to the classics and
the Fathers, together with the absence of dissentient
voices, is the adequate groundwork of our belief in the
history of literature.
3 . Once more : what are my grounds for thinking
that I, in my own particular case, shall die ? I am as
certain of it in my own innermost mind, as I am that I
now live ; but what is the distinct evidence on which I
allow myself to be certain ? how would it tell in a court
of justice ? how should I fare under a cross-examination
npon the grounds of my certitude ? Demonstration of
course I cannot have of a future event, unless by means
of a Divine Yoice ; but what logical defence can I make
Informal Inference. 299
for that undoubting, obstinate anticipation of it, of
which I could not rid myself, if I tried ?
First, the Future cannot be proved a posteriori ; there-
fore we are compelled by the nature of the case to put
up with a priori arguments, that is, with antecedent
probability, which is by itself no logical proof. Men
tell me that there is a law of death, meaning by law a
necessity; and I answer that they are throwing dust into
my eyes, giving me words instead of things. What is a
law but a generalized fact ? and what power has the
past over the future ? and what power has the case of
others over my own case ? and how many deaths have I
seen ? how many ocular witnesses have imparted to me
their experience of deaths, sufficient to establish what
is called a law ?
But let there be a law of death ; so there is a law, we
are told, that the planets, if let alone, would severally
fall into the sun — it is the centrifugal law which hinders
it, and so the centripetal law is never carried out. In
like manner I am not under the law of death alone, I
am under a thousand laws, if I am under one; and they
thwart and counteract each other, and jointly determine
the irregular line, along which my actual history runs,
divergent from the special direction of any one of them.
No law is carried out, except in cases where it acta
freely : how do I know that the law of death will be
allowed its free action in my particular case ? We often
are able to avert death by medical treatment : why
should death have its effect, sooner or later, in every
case conceivable ?
It is true that the human frame, in all instances
300 Inference,
which come before me, first grows, and then declines,
wastes, and decays, in visible preparation for dissolution.
We see death seldom, but of this decline we are witnesses
daily ; still, it is a plain fact, that most men who die,
die, not by any law of death, but by the law of disease ;
and some writers have questioned whether death is ever,
strictly speaking, natural. Now, are diseases necessary ?
is there any law that every one, sooner or later, must
fall under the power of disease ? and what would happen
on a large scale, were there no diseases ? Is what we
call the law of death anything more than the chance of
disease ? Is the prospect of my death, in its logical
evidence, — as that evidence is brought home to me —
much more than a high probability ?
The strongest proof I have for my inevitable mortality
is the reductio ad absurdum. Can I point to the man,
in historic times, who has lived his two hundred years?
What has become of past generations of men, unless it
is true that they suffered dissolution ? But this is a
circuitous argument to warrant a conclusion to which in
matter of fact I adhere so relentlessly. Anyhow, there
is a considerable "surplusage,'^ as Locke calls it, of belief
over proof, when I determine that I individually must
die. But what logic cannot do, my own living personal
reasoning, my good sense, which is the healthy condition
of such personal reasoning, but wbich cannot adequately
express itself in words, does for me, and I am possessed
with the most precise, absolute, masterful certitude of
my dying some day or other.
I am led on by these reflections to make another
remark. If it is difficult to explain how a man knows
I.
Informal I iifere7ice. 301
that he shall die, 13 it not more difficult for him to satisfy
himself how he knows that he was born ? His know-
ledge about himself does not rest on memory, nor on
distinct testimony, nor on circumstantial evidence. Can
he bring into one focus of proof the reasons which make
him so sure ? I am not speaking of scientific men, who
have diverse channels of knowledge, but o£ an ordinary
individual, as one of ourselves.
Answers doubtless may be given to some of these
questions ; but, on the whole, I think it is the fact that
many of our most obstinate and most reasonable certi-
tudes depend on proofs which are informal and personal,
which baffle our powers of analysis, and cannot be brought
under logical rule, because they cannot be submitted to
logical statistics. If we must speak of Law, this recog-
nition of a correlation between certitude and implicit
proof seems to me a law of our minds.
2.
I said just now that an object of sense presents itself
to our view as one whole, and not in its separate details :
we take it in, recognize it, and discriminate it from other
objects, all at once. Such too is the intellectual view
we take of the momenta of proof for a concrete truth ;
we grasp the full tale of premisses and the conclusion,
per modum unius, — by a sort of instinctive perception of
the legitimate conclusion in and through the premisses,
not by a formal juxta-position of propositions ; though
of course such a juxta-position is useful and natural, both
to direct and to verify, just as in objects of sight our
302 Inference.
notice of bodily peculiarities, or the remarks of others
may aid us in establishing a case of disputed identity.
And, as this man or that will receive his own impression
of one and the same person, and judge differently from
others about his countenance, its expression, its moral
significance, its physical contour and complexion, so an
intellectual question may strike two minds very differ-
ently, may awaken in them distinct associations, may be
invested by them in contrary characteristics, and lead
them to opposite conclusions ; — and so, again, a body
of proof, or a line of argument, may produce a distinct,
nay, a dissimilar effect, as addressed to one or to the
other.
Thus in concrete reasonings we are in great measure
thrown back into that condition, from which logic pro-
posed to rescue us. We judge for ourselves, by our own
lights, and on our own principles ; and our criterion of
truth is not so much the manipulation of propositions,
as the intellectual and moral character of the person
maintaining them, and the ultimate silent effect of his
arguments or conclusions upon our minds.
It is this distinction between ratiocination as the
exercise of a living faculty in the individual intellect,
and mere skill in argumentative science, which is the
true interpretation of the prejudice which exists against
logic in the popular mind, and of the animadversions
which are levelled against it, as that its formulas make
a pedant and a doctrinaire, that it never makes converts,
that it leads to rationalism, that Englishmen are too
practical to be logical, that an ounce of common-sense
goes farther than many cartloads of logic, that Laputa
Informal Inference. 303
is the land of logicians, and the like. Such maxims
mean, when analyzed, that the processes of reasoning
which legitimately lead to assent, to action, to certitude,
are in fact too multiform, subtle, omnigenous, too im-
plicit, to allow of being measured by rule, that they are
after all personal, — verbal argumentation being useful
only in subordination to a higher logic. It is this which
was meant by the Judge who, when asked for his advice
by a friend, on his being called to important duties
which were new to him, bade him always lay down the
law boldly, but never give his reasons, for his decision
was likely to be right, but his reasons sure to be
unsatisfactory. This is the point which I proceed to
illustrate.
1. I will take a question of the present moment.
" We shall have a European war, for Greece is auda-
ciously defying Turkey." How are we to test the
validity of the reason, implied, not expressed, in the
word " for " ? Only the judgment of diplomatists,
statesmen, capitalists, and the like, founded on experi-
ence, strengthened by practical and historical knowledge,
controlled by self-interest, can decide the worth of that
" for " in relation to accepting or not accepting the con-
clusion which depends on it. The argument is from
concrete fact to concrete fact. How will mere logical
inferences, which cannot proceed without general and
abstract propositions, help us on to the determination
of this particular case ? It is not the case of Switzer-
land attacking Austria, or of Portugal attacking Spain,
or of Belgium attacking Prussia, but a case without
I parallels. To draw a scientific conclusion, the argument
304 Inference.
must run somewhat iu this way : — " All audacious de-
fiances of Turkey on the part of Greece must end in a
European war ; those present acts of Greece are such :
ergo ;" — where the major premiss is more difficult to
accept than the conclusion, and the proof becomes an
" obscurum per obscarius." But, in truth, I should not
betake myself to some one universal proposition to defend
my own view of the matter ; I should determine the
particular case by its particular circumstances, by the
combination of many uncatalogued experiences floating
in my memory, of many reflections, variously produced,
felt rather than capable of statement ; and if I had them
not, I should go to those who had. I assent in conse-
quence of some such complex act of judgment, or from
faith in those who are capable of making it, and practi-
cally syllogism has no part, even verificatory, in the
action of my mind.
I take this instance at random in illustration ; now
let me follow it up by more serious cases.
2. Leighton says, " What a full confession do we
make of our dissatisfaction with the objects of our
bodily senses, that in our attempts to express what we
conceiveof the bestof beings and the greatest of felicities
to be, we describe by the exact contraries of all that
we experience here, — the one as infinite, incomprehen-
sible, immutable, &c.; the other as incorruptible, un-
defiled, and that passeth not away. At all events, this
coincidence, say rather identity of attributes, is sufficient
to apprise us that, to be inheritors of bliss, we must
become the children of God.'' Coleridge quotes this
passage, and adds, "Another and more fruitful, per-
Informal Inference. 305
haps more solid, inference from the facts would be, that
there is something in the human mind which makes it
know that in all finite quantity, there is an infinite, in
all measures of time an eternal ; that the latter are the
basis, the substance, of the former ; and that, as we truly ■
are only as far as God is with us, so neither can we
truly possess, that is, enjoy our being or any other
real good, but by living in the sense of His holy
presence '.•"
What is this an argument for ? how few readers will
enter into either premiss or conclusion ! and of those
who understand what it means, will not at least some
confess that they understand it by fits and starts, not
at all times ? Can we ascertain its force by mood and
figure ? Is there any royal road by which we may
indolently be carried along into the acceptance of it ?
Does not the author rightly number it among his " aids ^^
for our ^'reflection,'" not instruments for our compulsion?
It is plain that, if the passage is worth anything, we
must secure that worth for our own use by the personal
action of our own minds, or else we shall be only
professing and asserting its doctrine, without having
any ground or right to assert it. And our preparation
for understanding and making use of it will be the
general state of our mental discipline and cultivation,
our own experiences, our appreciation of religious
ideas, the perspicacity and steadiness of our intellectual
vision.
3. It is argued by Hume against the actual occurrence
of the Jewish and Christian miracles, that, whereas " it
1 "Aids to Eefleclion," p. 59, ed. 1839.
X
3o6 Inference.
is experience only which gives authority to human
testimony, and it is the same experience which assures
us of the laws of nature," therefore, "when these two
kinds of experience are contrary " to each other, " we
are bound to subtract the one from the other ;" and, in
consequence, since we have no experience of a violation
of natural laws, and much experience of the violation of
truth, " we may establish it as a maxim that no human
testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle,
and make it a just foundation for any such system of
religion." *
I will accept the general proposition, but I resist its
application. Doubtless it is abstractedly more likely
that men should lie than that the order of nature
should be infringed ; but what is abstract reasoning to
a question of concrete fact ? To arrive at the fact of any
matter, we must eschew generalities, and take things
as they stand, with all their circumstances. A priori,
of course the acts of men are not so trustworthy as the
order of nature, and the pretence of miracles is in fact
more common than the occurrence. But the question is
not about miracles in general, or men in general, but
definitely, whether these particular miracles, ascribed
to the particular Peter, James, and John, are more
likely to have been or not ; whether they are unlikely,
supposing that there is a Power, external to the world,
who can bring them about ; supposing they are the only
means by which He can reveal Himself to those who need
a revelation; supposing He is likely to reveal Himself;
that He has a great end in doing so ; that the professed
2 Works, vol. iii. p. 178, cd. 1770.
Informal Inference. 307
miracles in question are like His natural works, and such
as He is likely to work, in case He wrought miracles ;
that great effects, otherwise unaccountable, in the event
followed upon the acts said to be miraculous ; that they
were from the first accepted as true by large numbers
of men against their natural interests ; that the recep-
tion of them as true has left its mark upon the world,
as no other event ever did ; that, viewed in their effects,
they have — that is, the belief of them has — served to
raise human nature to a high moral standard, otherwise
unattainable : these and the like considerations are parts
of a great complex argument, which so far can be put into
propositions, but which, even between, and around, and
behind these, still is implicit and secret, and cannot by
any ingenuity be imprisoned in a formula, and packed into
a nut-shell. These various conditions may be decided
in the affirmative or in the negative. That is a further
point j here I only insist upon the nature of the argu-
ment, if it is to be philosophical. It must be no smart
antithesis which may look well on paper, but the living
action of the mind on a great problem of fact ; and we
must summon to our aid all our powers and resources,
if we would encounter it worthily, and not as if it were
a literary essay.
4. ''Consider the establishment of the Christian
religion,'' says Pascal in his '^ Thoughts.'' " Here is a
religion contrary to our nature, which establishes itself
in men's minds with so much mildness, as to use no
external force ; with so much energy, that no tortures
could silence its martyrs and confessors ; and consider
the holiness, devotion, humility of its true disciples;
X 2
3o8 Inference.
its sacred books, their superhuman grandeur, their
admirable simplicity. Consider the character of its
Founder; His associates and disciples, unlettered men,
yet possessed of wisdom sufficient to confound the ablest
philosopher; the astonishing succession of prophets who
heralded Him ; the state at this day of the Jewish peo-
ple who rejected Him and His religion ; its perpetuity
and its holiness ; the light which its doctrines shed upon
the contrarieties of our nature ; — after considering these
things, let any man judge if it be possible to doubt
about its being the only true one/^ '
This is an argument parallel in its character to that
by which we ascribe the classics to the Augustan age.
We urge, that, though we cannot draw the line defi-
nitely between what the monks could do. in literature,
and what they could not, anyhow Virgil's " ^neid "
and the Odes of Horace are far beyond the highest
capacity of the medieval .mind, which, however great,
was different in the character of its endowments. And
in like manner we maintain, that, granting that we
cannot decide how far the human mind can advance
by its own unaided powers in religious ideas and senti-
ments, and in religious practice, Still the facts of Chris-
tianity, as they stand, are beyond what is possible to
man, and betoken the presence of a higherintelligence,
pui'pose, and might.
Many have been converted and sustained in their
faith by this argument, which admits of being power-
fully stated ; but still such statement is after all only
intended to be a vehicle of thought, and to open the
» Taylor's Translation, p. 131.
Informal I nfei^ence. 309
mind to the appi'elieiision of the facts of the case, and to
trace them and their implications in outline, not to
convince by the logic of its mere wording. Do we not
think and muse as we read it, try to master it as we
proceed, put down the book in which we find it, fill out
its details from our own resources, and then resume the
study of it ? And, when we have to give an account of
it to others, should we make use of its language, or even
of its thoughts, and not rather of its drift and spirit ?
Has it never struck us what different lights different
minds throw upon the same theory and argument, nay,
how they seem to be differing in detail when they are
professing, and in reality showing, a concurrence in it ?
Have we never found, that, when a friend takes up the
defence of what we have written or said, that at first we
are unable to recognize in his statement of it what we
meant it to convey ? It will be our wisdom to avail
ourselves of language, as far as it will go, but to aim
mainly by means of it to stimulate, in those to whom
we address ourselves, a mode of thinking and trains of
thought similar to our own, leading them on by their
own independent action, not by any syllogistic com-
pulsion. Hence it is that an intellectual school will
always have something of an esoteric character ; for it is
an assemblage of minds that think ; their bond is unity
of thought, and their words become a sort of tessera,
not expressing thought, but symbolizing it.
Recurring to Pascals argument, I observe that, its
force depending upon the assumption that the facts of
Christianity are beyond human nature, therefore, accord-
ing as the powers of nature are placed at a high or low
3IO Inference.
standard, that force will be greater or less ; and that
standard will vary according to the respective disposi-
tions, opinions, and experiences, of those to whom the
argument is addressed. Thus its value is a personal
question ; not as if there were not an objective truth
and Christianity as a whole not supernatural, but that,
when we come to consider where it is that the super-
natural presence is found, there may be fair differences
of opinion, both as to the fact and the proof of what is
supernatural. There is a multitude of facts, which,
taken separately, may perhaps be natural, but, found
together, must come from a source above nature ; and
what these are, and how many are necessary, will be
variously determined. And while every inquirer has a
right to determine the question according to the best
exercise of his judgment, still whether he so determine it
for himself, or trust in part or altogether to the judgment
of those who have the best claim to judge, in either case
he is guided by the implicit processes of the reasoning
faculty, not by any manufacture of arguments forcing
their way to an irrefragable conclusion.
5. Pascal writes in another place, '' He who doubts,
but seeks not to have his doubts removed, is at once the
most criminal and the most unhappy of mortals. If,
together with this, he is tranquil and self-satisfied, if he
be vain of his tranquillity, or makes his state a topic of
mirth and self-gratulation, I have not words to describe
so insane a creature. Truly it is to the honour of reli-
gion to have for its adversaries men so bereft of reason ;
their opposition, far from being formidable, bears testi-
mony to its most distinguishing truths ; for the great
Informal Inference. 311
object of the Christian religion is to establish the cor-
ruption of our nature, and the redemption by Jesus
Christ/'* Elsewhere he says of Montaigne, "He involves
everything in such universal, unmingled scepticism, as
to doubt of his very doubts. He was a pure Pyrrhonist.
He ridicules all attempts at certainty in anything.
Delighted with exhibiting in his own person the con-
tradictions that exist in the mind of a free-thinker, it is
all one to him whether he is successful or not in his
argument. The virtue he loved was simple, sociable,
gay, sprightly, and playful ; to use one of his own
expressions, ' Ignorance and incuriousness are two
charming pillows for a sound head.' " °
Here are two celebrated writers in direct opposition
to each other in their fundamental view of truth and
duty. Shall we say that there is no such thing as truth
and error, but that anything is truth to a man which he
troweth ? and not rather, as the solution of a great
mystery, that truth there is, and attainable it is, but
that its rays stream in upon us through the medium of
our moral as well as our intellectual being ; and that
in consequence that perception of its first principles
which is natural to us is enfeebled, obstructed, per-
verted, by allurements of sense and the supremacy of
self, and, on the other hand, quickened by aspirations
after the supernatural ; so that at length two characters
of mind are brought out into shape, and two standards
and systems of thought, — each logical, when analyzed,
yet contradictory of each other, and only not antago-
« Ibid, pp. 108—110. « Ibid. pp. 429—436.
3 1 2 Inference.
nistic because they have no common ground on which
they can conflict ?
6. Montaigne was endowed with a good estate,
health, leisure, and an easy temper, literary tastes, and
a sufiiciency of books : he could afford thus to play
with life, and the abysses into which it leads us. Let
us take a case in contrast.
"I think," says the poor dying factory-girl in the
tale, "if this should be the end of all, and if all I have
been born for is just to work my heart and life away,
and to sicken in this dree place, with those mill-stones
in my ears for ever, until I could scream out for them
to stop and let me have a little piece of quiet, and with
the fluff filling my lungs, until I thirst to death for one
long deep breath of the clear air, and my mother gone,
and I never able to tell her again how I loved her, and
of all my troubles, — I think, if this life is the end, and
that there is no God to wipe away all tears from all
eyes, I could go mad ! " *
Here is an argument for the immortality of the soul.
As to its force, be it great or small, will it make a figure
in a logical disputation, carried on secundum artem ?
Can any scientific common measure compel the intellects
of Dives and Lazarus to take the same estimate of it ?
Is there auy test of the validity of it better than the
ipse dixit of private judgment, that is, the judgment
of those who have a right to judge, and next, the
agreement of many private judgments in one and the
same view of it ?
7. " In order to prove plainly and intelligibly," says
• «<North and South."
Informal Inference, 3 1 3
Dr. Samuel Clarke^ " that God is a Being, which must
of necessity be endued with perfect knowledge, 'tis to
be observed that knowledge is a perfection, without
which the foregoing attributes are no perfections at aU,
and without which those which follow can have no foun-
dation. Where there is no Knowledge, Eternity and
Immensity are as nothing, and Justice, Goodness,
Mercy, and Wisdom can have no place. The idea of
eternity and omnipresence, devoid of knowledge, is as
the notion of darkness compared with that of light.
'Tis as a notion of the world without the sun to illumi-
nate it ; 'tis as the notion of inanimate matter (which is
the atheist's supreme cause) compared with that of light
and spirit. And as for the following attributes of Jus-
tice, Goodness, Mercy, and Wisdom, 'tis evident that
without knowledge there could not possibly be any
such things as these at all." ^
The argument here used in behalf of the Divine
Attribute of Knowledge comes under the general pro-
position that the attributes imply each other, for the
denial of one is the denial of the rest. To some minds
this thesis is self-evident ; others are utterly insensible
to its force. Will it bear bringing out into words
throughout the whole series of its argumentative
links ? for if it does, then either those who maintain
it or those who reject it, the one or the other, will be
compelled by logical necessity to confess that they are
in error. " God is wise, if He is eternal ; He is good,
if He is wise ; He is just, if He is good." What skill
can so arrange these propositions, so add to them, so
7 Serm. xi, init.
3 1 4 Inference.
combine them, that they may bo able, by the force of
their juxta-position, to follow one from the other, and
become one and the same by an inevitable correlation.
That is not the method by which the argument be-
comes a demonstration. Such a method, used by a
Theist in controversy against men who are unprepared
personally for the question, will but issue in his re-
treat along a series of major propositions, farther and
farther back, till he and they find themselves in a land
of shadows, " where the light is as darkness."
To feel the true force of an argument like this, we
must not confine ourselves to abstractions, and merely
compare notion with notion, but we must contemplate
the God of our conscience as a Living Being, as one
Object and Reality, under the aspect of this or that
attribute. We must patiently rest in the thought of
the Eternal, Omnipresent, and All-knowing, rather than
of Eternity, Omnipresence, and Omniscience ; and we
must not hurry on and force a series of deductions,
which, if they are to be realized, must distil like dew
into our minds, and form themselves spontaneously
there, by a calm contemplation and gradual under-
standing of their premisses. Ordinarily speaking,
such deductions do not flow forth, except according as
the Image,* presented to us through conscience, on
which they depend, is cherished within us with the
sentiments which, supposing it be, as we know it is,
the truth, it necessarily claims of us, and is seen re-
flected, by the habit of our intellect, in the appoint-
ments and the events of the external world. And, in
8 Tide supr. ch. v. § 1, pp. 109, 113,
hiformal Inference. 3 1 5
their manifestation to our inward sense, they are
analogous to the knowledge which we at length attain
of the details of a landscape^ after we have selected
the right stand-point, and have learned to accommo-
date the pupil of our eye to the varying focus neces-
sary for seeing them ; have accustomed it to the glare
of light, have mentally grouped or discriminated lines
and shadows and given them their due meaning, and
have mastered the perspective of the whole. Or they
may be compared to a landscape as drawn by the
pencil (unless the illustration seem forced)^ in which
by the skill of the artist, amid the bold outlines of
trees and rocks, when the eye has learned to take in
their reverse aspects, the forms or faces of historical
personages are discernible, which we catch and lose
again, and then recover, and which some who look on
with us are never able to catch at all.
Analogous to such an exercise of sight, must be our
mode of dealing with the verbal expositions of an
argument such as Clarke's. His words speak to those
who understand the speech. To the mere barren
intellect they are but the pale ghosts of notions ; but
the trained imagination sees in them the representa-
tions of things. He who has once detected in his
conscience the outline of a Lawgiver and Judge, needs
no definition of Him, whom he dimly but surely con-
templates there, and he rejects the mechanism of
logic, which cannot contain in its grasp matters so
real and so recondite. Such a one, according to the
strength and perspicacity of his mind, the force of hia
presentiments, and his power of sustained attention,
3 1 6 Inference.
is able' to pronounce about the great Sight which
encompasses him, as about some visible object ; and,
in his investigation of the Divine Attributes, is not
inferring abstraction from abstraction, but noting
down the aspects and phases of that one thing on
which he is ever gazing. Nor is it possible to limit
the depth of meaning, which at length he will attach to
words, which to the many are but definitions and ideas.
Here then again, as in the other instances, it seems
clear, that methodical processes of inference, useful as
they are, as far as they go, are only instruments of the
mind, and need, in order to their due exercise, that
real ratiocination and present imagination which gives
them a sense beyond their letter, and which, while
acting through them, reaches to conclusions beyond
and above them. Such a living organon is a personal
gift, and not a mere method or calculus.
3.
That there are cases, in which evidence, not suffi-
cient for a scientific proof, is nevertheless sufficient for
assent and certitude, is the doctrine of Locke, as of
most men. He tells us that belief, grounded on suffi-
cient probabilities, " rises to assurance/' and as to
the question of sufficiency, that where propositions
" border near on certain ty,'' then "we assent to them
as firmly as if they were infallibly demonstrated."
The only question is, what these propositions are : this
he does not tell us, but he seems to think that they
are few in number, and will bo without any trouble
Informal Inference. 317
recognized at once by common-sense ; whereas, unless
I am mistaken, they are to be found throughout the
range of concrete matter, and that supra-logical judg-
ment, which is the warrant for our certitude about
them, is not mere common-sense, but the true healthy
action of our ratiocinative powers, an action more
subtle and more comprehensive than the mere appre-
ciation of a syllogistic argument. It is often called
the "judicium prudentis viri,^^ a standard of certitude
which holds good in all concrete matter, not only in
those cases of practice and duty, in which we are
more familiar with it, but in questions of truth and
falsehood generally, or in what are called " specula-
tive " questions, and that, not indeed to the exclusion,
but as the supplement of logic. Thus a proof, except
in abstract demonstration, has always in it, more or
less, an element of the personal, because " prudence ''
is not a constituent part of our nature, but a personal
endowment.
And the language in common use, when concrete
conclusions are in question, implies the presence of
this personal element in the proof of them. We are
considered to feel, rather than to see, its cogency ; and
we decide, not that the conclusion must be, but that
it cannot be otherwise. We say, that we do not see
our way to doubt it, that it is impossible to doubt, that
we are bound to believe it, that we should be idiots, if
we did not believe. We never should say, in abstract
science, that we could not escape the conclusion that
25 was a mean proportional between 5 and 125; or
that a man had no right to say that a tangent to
3 1 8 Inference.
a circle at the extremity of the radius makes an acute
angle with it. Yet, though our certitude of the fact
is quite as clear, we should not think it unnatural to
say that the insularity of Great Britain is as good as
demonstrated, or that none but a fool expects never to
die. Phrases indeed such as these are sometimes used
to express a shade of doubt, but it is enough for my
purpose if they are also used when doubt is altogether
absent. What, then, they signify, is, what I have so
much insisted on, that we have arrived at these con-
clusions — not ex opere operato, by a scientific necessity
independent of ourselves, — but by the action of our
own minds, by our own individual perception of the
truth in question, under a sense of duty to those con-
clusions and with an intellectual conscientiousness.
This certitude and this evidence are often called
moral ; a word which I avoid, as having a very vague
meaning ; but using it here for once, I observe that
moral evidence and moral certitude are all that we can
attain, not only in the case of ethical and spiritual
subjects, such as religion, but of terrestrial and cos-
mical questions also. So far, physical Astronomy and
Revelation stand on the same footing. Vince, in his
treatise on Astronomy, does but use the language of
philosophical sobriety, when, after speaking of the
proofs of the earth's rotatory motion, he says, " When
these reasons, all upon different principles, are con-
sidered, they amount to a proof of the earth's rota-
tion about its axis, which is as satisfactory to the
mind as the most direct demonstration could be ; " or,
as he had said just before, "the mind rests equally
Informal Inference. 319
satisfied, as if the matter was strictly proved/^ ' That
is, first there is no demonstration that the earth
rotates ; next there is a cluster of " reasons on different
principles/^ that is, independent probabilities in cumu-
lation ; thirdly, these " amount to a proof," and " the
mind " feels " as if the matter was strictly proved,"
that is, there is the equivalent of proof; lastly, "the
mind rests satisfied," that is, it is certain on the point.
And though evidence of the fact is now obtained
which was not known fifty years ago, that evidence on
the whole has not changed its character.
Compare with this avowal the language of Butler,
when discussing the proof of Revelation. " Probable
proofs," he says, " by being added, not only increase
the evidence, but multiply it. The truth of our religion,
like the truth of common matters, is to be judged by the
whole evidence taken together ... in like manner as,
if in any common case numerous events acknowledged
were to be alleged in proof of any other event" disputed,
the truth of the disputed event would be proved, not
only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself
clearly imply it, but though no one of them singly did
80, if the whole of the acknowledged events taken
together could not in reason be supposed to have hap-
)ened, unless the disputed one were true.^^ ' Here, as
Astronomy, is the same absence of demonstration of
the thobis, the same cumulating and converging indica-
ions of it, the same indirectness in the proof, as being
Der impossibile, the same recognition nevertheless that
le conclusion is not only probable, but true. One other
» Pp. 84., 85. 1 "Analogy," pp. 329, 330, ed. 1836.
320 Inference.
characteristic of the argumentative process is given,
which is unnecessary in a subject-matter so clear and
simple as astronomical science, viz. the moral state of the
parties inquiring or disputing. They must be " as much
in earnest about religion, as about their temporal affairs,
capable of being convinced, on real evidence, that there
is a God who governs the world, and feel themselves to
be of a moral nature and accountable creatures." ^
This being the state of the case, the question arises,
whether, granting that the personality (so to speak) of
the parties reasoning is an important element in proving
propositions in concrete matter, any account can be
given of the ratiocinative method in such proofs, over
and above that analysis into syllogism which is possible
in each of its steps in detail. I think there can ; though
I fear, lest to some minds it may appear far-fetched or
fanciful; however, I will hazard this imputation. I
consider, then, that the principle of concrete reasoning
is parallel to the method of proof which is the foundation
of modern mathematical science, as contained in the
celebrated lemma with which Newton opens his " Prin-
cipia." We know that a regular polygon, inscribed in
a circle, its sides being continually diminished, tends to
become that circle, as its limit ; but it vanishes before
it has coincided with the circle, so that its tendency to
be the circle, though ever nearer fulfilment, never in fact
gets beyond a tendency. In like manner, the conclusion
in a real or concrete question is foreseen and predicted
rather than actually attained; foreseen in the number
and direction of accumulated premisses, which all con- :
2 Ibid, p. 278.
Informal Inference. 321
verge to it, and, as the result of their combination,
approach it more nearly than any assignable difference,
yet do not touch it logically, (though only not touching
it,) on account of the nature of its subject-matter, and
the delicate and implicit character of at least part of the
reasonings on which it depends. It is by the strength,
variety, or multiplicity of premisses, which are only
probable, not by invincible syllogisms, — by objections
overcome, by adverse theories neutralized, by diffi-
culties gradually clearing up, by exceptions proving the
rule, by unlooked-for correlations found with received
truths, by suspense and delay in the process issuing in
triumphant reactions, — by all these ways, and many
others, it is that the practised and experienced mind is
able to make a sure divination that a conclusion is in-
evitable, of which his lines of reasoning do not actually
put him in possession. This is what is meant by a pro-
position being '' as good as proved," a conclusion as
undeniable " as if it were proved,^' and by the reasons
for it " amounting to a proof," for a proof is the limit
of converging probabilities.
It may be added, that, whereas the logical form of
this argument, is, as I have already observed, indirect,
viz. that ''the conclusion cannot be otherwise," and
Butler says that an event is proved, if its antecedents
''could not in reason be supposed to have happened
unless it were true," and law-books tell us that the
principle of circumstantial evidence is the reductio ad
ahsurdum, so Newton too is forced to the same mode of
proof for the establishment of his lemma, about prime
and ultimate ratios. " If you deny that they become
Y
32 2 Inference.
ultimately equal," he says, "let them be ultimately
unequal ;" and the consequence follows, " which is
against the supposition."
Such being the character of the mental process in
concrete reasoning, I should wish to adduce some good
instances of it in illustration, instances in which the
person reasoning confesses that he is reasoning on this
very process, as I have been stating it ; but these are
difficult to find, from the very circumstance that the
process from first to last is carried on as much without
words as with them. However, I will set down three
such.
1. First, an instance in physics. Wood, treating of
the laws of motion, thus describes the line of reasoning
by which the mind is certified of them. " They are not
indeed self-evident, nor do they admit of accurate proof
by experiment, on account of the effects of friction and
the air's resistance, which cannot entirely be removed.
They are, however, constantly and invariably suggested
to our senses, and they agree with experiment, as far as
experiment can go ; and the more accurately the experi-
ments are made, and the greater care we take to remove
all those impediments which tend to render the conclu-
sions erroneous, the more nearly do the experiments
coincide with these laws.
"Their truth is also established upon a different
ground : from these general principles innumerable
particular conclusions have been deducted ; sometimes
the deductions are simple and immediate, sometimes
they are made by tedious and intricate operations;
yet they are all, without exception, consistent with
Informal Inference. 323
each other and with, experiment. It follows thereby,
that the principles upon which the calculations are
founded are true/^'
'The reasoning of this passage (in which the uniformitj
of the laws of nature is assumed) seems to me a good
illustration of what must be considered the principle
or form of an induction. The conclusion, which is its
scope, is, by its own confession, not proved; but it
ought to be proved, or is as good as proved, and a man
would be irrational who did not take it to be virtually
proved; first, because the imperfections in the proof arise
out of its subject-matter and the nature of the case, so
that it is proved interpretative ; and next, because in
the same degree in which these faults in the subject-
matter are overcome here or there, are the involved
imperfections here or there of the proof remedied ; and
further, because, when the conclusion is assumed as an
hypothesis, it throws light upon a multitude of collateral
facts, accounting for them, and uniting them together
in one whole. Consistency is not always the guarantee
of truth; but there may be a consistency in a theory so
variously tried and exemplified as to lead to belief in it,
as reasonably as a witness in a court of law may, after a
severe cross-examination, satisfy and assure judge, jury,
and the whole court, of his simple veracity.
2. And from the courts of law shall my second illus-
tration be taken.
A learned writer says, " In criminal prosecutions, the
circumstantial evidence should be such, as to produce
nearly the same degree of certainty as that which arises
3 " Mechanics," p. 31.
Y 2
324 Inferetice.
from direct testimony, and to exclude a rational proba-
bility of innocence." ■* By degrees of certainty he seems
to mean, together with many other writers, degrees of
proof, or approximations towards proof, and not certi-
tude, as a state of mind; and be says that no one should
be pronounced guilty on evidence which is not equiva-
lent in weight to direct testimony. So far is clear ; but
what is meant by the expression "rational probability" ?
for there can be no probability but what is rational. I
consider that the " exclusion of a rational probability "
means the '' exclusion of any argument in the man's
favour which has a rational claim to be called probable,"
or rather, " the rational exclusion of any supposition
that he is innocent ; " and " rational " is used in contra-
distinction to argumentative, and means '' resting on
implicit reasons," such as we feel, indeed, but which
for some cause or other, because they ai'e too subtle or
too circuitous, we cannot put into words so as to satisfy
logic. If this is a correct account of his meaning, he
says that the evidence against a criminal, in order to be
decisive of his guilt, to the satisfaction of our conscience,
must bear with it, along with the palpable argumentsfor
that guilt, such a reasonableness, or body of implicit rea-
sons for it in addition, as may exclude any probability,
really such, that he is not guilty, — that is, it must be
an evidence free from anything obscure, suspicious, un-
natural, or defective, such as (in the judgment of a pru-
dent man) would hinder that summation and coalescence
of the evidence into a proof, which I have compared to
■the running into alimit, in the case ofmathematical ratios.
* Pbillipj)s' " Liiw of Evidence," vol. i. p. 456.
Informal Inference. 325
Just as an algebraical series may be of a nature never to
terminate or admit of valuation, as being the equivalent
of an irrational quantity or surd, so there may be some
grave imperfections in a body of reasons, explicit or
implicit, whicb is directed to a proof, sufficient to in-
terfere with its successful issue or resolution, and to
balk us with an irrational, that is, an indeterminate,
conclusion.
So much as to the principle of conclusions made
upon evidence in criminal cases ; now let us turn to an
instance of its application in a particular instance.
Some years ago there was a murder committed, which
unusually agitated the popular mind, and the evidence
against the culprit was necessarily circumstantial. At
the trial the Judge, in addressing the Jury, instructed
them on the kind of evidence necessary for a verdict
of guilty. Of course he could not mean to say that
they must convict a man, of whose guilt they were not
certain, especially in a case in which two foreign
countries, Germany and the American States, were
attentively looking on. If the Jury had any doubt,
that is, reasonable doubt, about the man^s guilt, of
course they would give him the benefit of that doubt.
Nor could the certitude, which would be necessary for
an adverse verdict, be merely that which is sometimes
called a " practical certitude," that is, a certitude indeed,
but a certitude, that it was a " duty," " expedient,"
" safe," to bring in a verdict of guilty. Of course the
Judge spoke of what is called a " speculative certitude,"
that is, a certitude of the fact that the man was guilty ;
the only question being, what evidence was sufficient for
326 hiference.
the proof, for the certitude of that fact. This is what
the Judge meant ; and these are among the remarks
which, with this drift, he made upon the occasion : —
After observing that by circumstantial evidence he
meant a case in which " the facts do not directly prove
the actual crime, but lead to the conclusion that the
prisoner committed that crime,^' he went on to disclaim
the suggestion, made by counsel in the case, that the
Jury could not pronounce a verdict of guilty, unless they
were as much satisfied that the prisoner did the deed as
if they had seen him commit it. " That is not the cer-
tainty," he said, " which is required of you to discharge
your duty to the prisoner, whose safety is in your hands."
Then he stated what was the *' degree of certainty," that
is, of certainty or perfection of proof, which was neces-
sary to the question, " involving as it did the life of the
prisoner at the bar," — it was such as that " with which,"
he said, ''you decide upon and conclude your own most
important transactions in life. Take the facts which are
proved before you, separate those you believe from
those which you do not believe, and all the conclusions
that naturally and almost necessarily result from those
facts, you may confide in as much as in the facts them-
selves. The case on the part of the prosecution is the
story of the murder, told by the different witnesses,
who unfold the circumstances one after another, according
to their occurrence, together with the gradual discovery
of some apparent connexion between the property that
was lost, and the possession of it by the prisoner."
Now here I observe, that whereas the conclusion
which is contemplated by the Judge, is what may be
Infoi'tnal Inference. 327
pronounced (on the whole, and considering all things,
and judging reasonably) a proved or certain conclusion,
that is, a conclusion of the truth of the allegation
against the prisoner, or of the fact of his guilt, on
the other hand, the motiva constituting this reasonable,
rational proof, and this satisfactory certitude, needed
not, according to him, to be stronger than those on
which we prudently act on matters of important interest
to ourselves, that is, probable reasons viewed in their
convergence and combination. And whereas the
certitude is viewed by the Judge as following on con-
verging probabilities, which constitute a real, though
only a reasonable, not an argumentative, proof, so it will
be observed in this particular instance, that, in illustra-
tion of the general doctrine which I have laid down, the
process is one of " line upon line, and letter upon letter,"
of various details accumulating and of deductions fitting
into each other ; for, in the Judge's words, there was a
story — and that not told right out and by one witness,
but taken up and handed on from witness to witness —
gradually unfolded, and tending to a proof, which of
course might have been ten times stronger than it was,
but was still a proof for all that, and sufi&cient for its
conclusion, — just as we see that two straight lines are
meeting, and are certain they will meet at a given dis-
tance, though we do not actually see the junction.
3. The third instance I will take is one of a literary
character, the divination of the authorship of a certain
■anonymous publication, as suggested mainly by in-
ternal evidence, as I find it in a critique written some
twenty years ago. In the extract which I make from
J
28 Inference.
it, we may observe the same steady marcli of a proof
towards a conclusion, which is (as it were) out of
sight; — a reckoning, or a reasonable judgment, that
the conclusion really is proved, and a personal certi-
tude upon that judgment, joined with a confession that
a logical argument could not well be made out for it,
and that the various details in which the proof con-
sisted were in no small measure implicit and impal-
pable.
" Kumour speaks uniformly and clearly enough in
attributing it to the pen of a particular individual.
Nor, although a cursory reader might well skim the
book without finding in it anything to suggest, &c.,
.... will it appear improbable to the more attentive
student of its internal evidence j and the improbabilty
will decrease more and more, in proportion as the
reader is capable of judging and appreciating the
delicate, and at first invisible touches, which limit, to
those who understand them, the individuals who can
have written it to a very small number indeed. The
utmost scepticism as to its authorship [which we do not
feel ourselves) cannot remove it farther from him than
to that of some one among his most intimate friends ;
80 that, leaving others to discuss antecedent probabi-
lities,^' &c.
Here is a writer who professes to have no doubt at
all about the authorship of a book, — which at the same
time he cannot prove by mere argumentation set down
in words. The reasons of his conviction are too deli-
cate, too intricate; nay, they are in part invisible;
invisible, except to those who from circumstances have
Informal Inference . 329
an intellectual perception of what does not appear to
the many. They are personal to the individual. This
again is an instance, distinctly set before us, of the
particular mode in which the mind progresses in con-
crete matter, viz. from merely probable antecedents to
the sufficient proof of a fact or a truth, and, after the
proof, to an act of certitude about it.
I trust the foregoing remarks may not deserve the
blame of a needless refinement, I have thought it
incumbent on me to illustrate the intellectual process
by which we pass from conditional inference to uncon-
ditional assent ; and I have had only the alternative
of lying under the imputation of a paradox or of a
subtlety.
330 Inference,
§ 3. Natural Inference.
I COMMENCED my remarks upon Inference by saying
that reasoning ordinarily shows as a simple act, not as
a process, as if there were no medium interposed be-
tween antecedent and consequent, and the transition
from one to the other were of the nature of an in-
stinct, — that is, the process is altogether unconscious
and implicit. It is necessary, then, to take some
notice of this natural or material Inference, as an
existing phenomenon of mind; and that the more,
because I shall thereby be illustrating and supporting
what I have been saying of the characteristics of
inferential processes as carried on in concrete matter,
and especially of their being the action of the mind
itself, that is, by its ratiocinative or illative faculty,
not a mere operation as in the rules of ai'ithmetic.
I say, then, that our most natural mode of reasoning
is, not from propositions to propositions, but from things
to things, from concrete to concrete, from wholes to
wholes. Whether the consequents, at which we arrive
from the antecedents with which we start, lead us to
assent or only towards assent, those antecedents com-
monly are not recognized by us as subjects for analy-
I
Natural Inference. 331
sis ; nay, often are only indirectly recognized as ante-
cedents at all. Not only is the inference with its pro-
cess ignored, but the antecedent also. To the mind
itself the reasoning is a simple divination or predic-
tion ; as it literally is in the instance of enthusiasts,
who mistake their own thoughts for inspirations.
This is the mode in which we ordinarily reason,
dealing with things directly, and as they stand, one by
one, in the concrete, with an intrinsic and personal
power, not a conscious adoption of an artificial instru-
ment or expedient ; and it is especially exemplified
both in uneducated men, and in men of genius, — in
those who know nothing of intellectual aids and rules,
and in those who care nothing for them, — in those
who are either without or above mental discipline. As
true poetry is a spontaneous outpouring of thought,
and therefore belongs to rude as well as to gifted
minds, whereas no one becomes a poet merely by the
canons of criticism, so this unscientific reasoning,
being sometimes a natural, uncultivated faculty, some-
times approaching to a gift, sometimes an acquired
habit and second nature, has a higher source than
logical rule, — " nascitur, non fit.'' When it is charac-
terized by precision, subtlety, promptitude, and truth,
it is of course a gift and a rarity : in ordinary minds
it is biassed and degraded by prejudice, passion, and
self-interest ; but still, after all, this divination comes by
^nature, and belongs to all of us in a measure, to women
more than to men, hitting or missing, as the case may
be, but with a success on the whole sufficient to show
that there is a method in it, though it be implicit.
332 Inference.
A peasant who is weather-wise may yet be simply un-
able to assign intelligible reasons why he thinks it will
be fine to-morrow ; and if he attempts to do so, he
may give reasons wide of the mark ; but that will not
weaken his own confidence in his prediction. His mind
does not proceed step by step, but he feels all at once
and together the force of various combined phenomena,
though he is not conscious of them. Again, there are
physicians who excel in the diagnosis of complaints;
though it does not follow from this, that they could
defend their decision in a particular case against a
brother physician who disputed it. They are guided
by natural acuteness and varied experience ; they have
their own idiosyncratic modes of observing, generaliz-
ing, and concluding; when questioned, they can but
rest on their own authority, or appeal to the future
event; In a popular novel,* a lawyer is introduced,
who "would know, almost by instinct, whether an
accused person was or was not guilty; and he had
already perceived by instinct" that the heroine was
guilty. "Fve no doubt she's a clever woman," he
said, and at once named an attorney practising at the
Old Bailey. So, again, experts and detectives, when
employed to investigate mysteries, in cases whether of
the civil or criminal law, discern and follow out indi-
cations which promise solution with a sagacity incom-
prehensible to ordinary men. A parallel gift is the
intuitive perception of character possessed by certain
men, while others are as destitute of it, as others
again are of an ear for music. What common measure
• "OrleyFarm."
I
Natural Infer e'>ue. 333
is there between the judgments of those who have this
intuition, and those who have not ? What but the
event can settle any difference of opinion which occurs
in their estimation of a third person ? These are
instances of a natural capacity, or of nature improved
by practice and habit, enabling the mind to pass
promptly from one set of facts to another, not only, I
say, without conscious media, but without conscious
antecedents.
Sometimes, I say, this illative faculty is nothing
short of genius. Such seems to have been Newton^s
perception of truths mathematical and physical, though
proof was absent. At least that is the impression left
on my own mind by various stories which are told of
him, one of which was stated in the public papers a
few years ago. " Professor Sylvester,^^ it was said,
"has just discovered the proof of Sir Isaac Newton's
rule for ascertaining the imaginary roots of equations.
, . . This rule has been a Gordian-knot amonof alsre-
braists for the last century and a half. The proof
being wanting, authors became ashamed at length of
advancing a proposition, the evidence for which rested
on no other foundation than belief in Newton's saga-
city.'' «
Such is the gift of the calculating boys who now and
^then make their appearance, who seem to have certain
sshort-cuts to conclusions, which they cannot explain to
themselves. Some are said to have been able to de-
Itermine off-hand what numbers are prime, — numbers,
\\ think, up to seven places.
^ Guardian, Juae 28, 1865.
334 Inference.
In a very different subject-matter, Napoleon sap-
plies us with an instance of a parallel genius in reason-
ing, by which he was enabled to look at things in his
own province, and to interpret them truly, apparently
without any ratiocinative media. " By long experi-
ence,^'' says Alison, " joined to great natural quickness
and precision of eye, he had acquired the power of
judging, with extraordinary accuracy, both of the
amount of the enemy's force opposed to him in the
field, and of the probable result of the movements,
even the most complicated, going forward in the oppo-
site armies. . . . He looked around him for a little
while with his telescope, and immediately formed a
clear conception of the position, forces, and intention
of the whole hostile array. In this way he could,
with surprising accuracy, calculate in a few minutes,
according to what he could see of their formation and
the extent of the ground which they occupied, the
numerical force of armies of 60,000 or 80,000 men ;
and if their troops were at all scattered, he knew at
once how long it would require for them to concen-
trate, and how many hours must elapse before they
could make their attack. '^ '
It is difficult to avoid calling such clear presenti-
ments by the name of instinct ; and I think they may
80 be called, if by instinct be understood, not a natural
sense, one and the same in all, and incapable of culti-
vation, but a perception of facts without assignable
media of perceiving. There are those who can tell at
once what is conducive or injurious to their welfare,
' History, vol. x. pp. 286, 287.
Natural Inference. 335
who are their friends, who their enemies, what is to
happen to them, and how they are to meet it. Presence
of mind, fathoming of motives, talent for repartee, are
instances of this gift. As to that divination of per-
sonal danger which is found in the young and inno-
cent, we find a description of it in one of Scott^s
romances, in which the heroine, '^without being able
to discover what was wrong either in the scenes of
unusual luxury with which she was surrounded, or in
the manner of her hostess," is said nevertheless to
have felt '' an instinctive apprehension that all was not
right, — a feeling in the human mind," the author
proceeds to say, " allied perhaps to that sense of
danger, which animals exhibit, when placed in the
vicinity of the natural enemies of their race, and
which makes birds cower when the hawk is in the air,
and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the
desert." ^
A religious biography, lately published, affords us an
instance of this spontaneous perception of truth in the
province of revealed doctrine. " Her firm faith," says
the Author of the Preface, " was so vivid in its cha-
racter, that it was almost like an intuition of the entire
prospect of revealed truth. Let an error against faith
be concealed under expressions however abstruse, and
her sure instinct found it out. I have tried this experi-
ment repeatedly. She might not be able to separate the
heresy by analysis, but she saw, and felt, and suffered
from its presence." '
8 « Peveril of the Peak."
• "Life of Mother Margaret M. Hallahan," p. vii.
33^ Inference.
And so of the gi'eat fundamental truths of religion,
natural and revealed, and as regards the mass of religious
men : these truths, doubtless, may be proved and de-
fended by an array of invincible logical arguments, but
such is not commonly the method in which those same
logical arguments make their way into our minds. The
grounds, on which we hold the divine origin of the
Church, and the previous truths which are taught us
by nature — the being of a God, and the immortality of
the soul — are felt by most men to be recondite and im-
palpable, in proportion to their depth and reality. As
we cannot see ourselves, so we cannot well see intel-
lectual motives which are so intimately ours, and which
spring up from the very constitution of our minds ; and
while we refuse to admit the notion that religion has
not irrefragable arguments in its behalf, still the at-
tempts to argue, on the part of an individual hie et nunc,
will sometimes only confuse his apprehension of sacred
objects, and subtracts from his devotion quite as much
as it adds to his knowledge.
This is found in the case of other perceptions besides
that of faith. It is the case of nature against art : of
course, if possible, nature and art should be combined,
but sometimes they are incompatible. Thus, in the
case of calculating boys, it is said, I know not with
what truth, that to teach them the ordinary rules of
arithmetic is to endanger or to destroy the extraordinary
endowment. And men who have the gift of playing on
an instrument by ear, are sometimes afraid to learn by
rule, lest they should lose it
There is an analogy, in this respect, between JRatioci-
Nattiral Inference. '}^')^']
nation and Memory, though the latter may be exercised
without antecedents or media, whereas the former
requires them in its very idea. At the same time asso-
ciation has so much to do with memory, that we may
not unfairly consider memory, as well as reasoning, as
depending on certain previous conditions. Writing, as I
have already observed, is a memoria technica, or logic of
memory. Now it will be found, I think, that indis-
pensable as is the use of letters, still, in fact, we weaken
our memory in proportion as we habituate ourselves to
commit all that we wish to remember to memorandums.
Of course in proportion as our memory is weak or over-
burdened, and thereby treacherous, we cannot act other-
wise ; but in the case of men of strong memory in any
particular subject-matter, as in that of dates, all artificial
expedients, from the '* Thirty days has September,^' &c.,
to the more formidable formulas which are offered for
their use, are as difficult and repulsive as the natural
exercise of memory is healthy and easy to them ; just
as the clear-headed and practical reasoner, who sees
conclusions at a glance, is uncomfortable under the drill
of a logician, being oppressed and hampered, as David
in SauFs armour, by what is intended to be a benefit.
I need not say more on this part of the subject.
What is called reasoning is often only a peculiar and
personal mode of abstraction, and so far, like memory,
niay be said to exist without antecedents. It is a power
of looking at things in some particular aspect, and of
determining their internal and external relations
thereby. And according to the subtlety and versatility
of their gift, are men able to read what comes before
z
^^S Inference.
them justly, variously, and fruitfully. Hence, too, it is,
that in our intercourse with others, in business and
family matters, in social and political transactions, a
word or an act on the part of another is sometimes a
sudden revelation ; light breaks in upon us, and our
whole judgment of a course of events, or of an under-
taking, is changed. We determine correctly or other-
wise, as it may be ; but in either case, it is by a sense
proper to ourselves, for another may see the objects
which weare thus using, and give them quite a different
interpretation, inasmuch as he abstracts another set
of general notions from those same phenomena which
present themselves to us also.
What I have been saying of Ratiocination, may be
said of Taste, and is confirmed by the obvious analogy
between the two. Taste, skill, invention in the fine
arts — and so, again, discretion or judgment in conduct
— are exerted spontaneously, when once acquired, and
could not give a clear account of themselves, or of their
mode of proceeding. They do not go by rule, though
to a certain point their exercise may be analyzed, and
may take the shape of an art or method. But these
parallels will come before us presently.
And now I come to a further peculiarity of this
natural and spontaneous ratiocination. This faculty, as
it is actually found in us, proceeding from concrete to
concrete, is attached to a definite subject-matter, accord-
ing to the individual. In spite of Aristotle, I will not
allow that genuine reasoning is an instrumental art ; and
in spite of Dr. Johnson, I will assert that genius, as far
as it is manifested in ratiocination, is not equal to all
Na tiiral Inference . 339
undertakings, but has its own peculiar subject-matter,
and is circumscribed in its range. No one would for
a moment expect that because Newton and Napoleon
both had a genius for ratiocination, that, in consequence.
Napoleon could have generalized the principle of gra-
vitation, or Newton have seen how to concentrate a
hundred thousand men at Austerlitz. The ratiocinative
faculty, then, as found in individuals, is not a general
instrument of knowledge, but has its province, or is
what may be called departmental. It is not so much
one faculty, as a collection of similar or analogous facul-
ties under one name, there being really as many facul-
ties as there are distinct subject-matters, though in the
same person some of them may, if it so happen, be
united, — nay, though some men have a sort of literary
power in arguing in all subject-matters, de omni scibili,
a power extensive, but not deep or real.
This surely is the conclusion, to which we are brought
by our ordinary experience of men. It is almost pro-
verbial that a hard-headed mathematician may have no
head at all for what is called historical evidence. Suc-
cessful experimentalists need not have talent for legal
research or pleading. A shrewd man of business may
be a bad arguer in philosophical questions. Able states-
men and politicians have been before now eccentric or
superstitious in their religious views. It is notorious
how ridiculous a clever man may make himself, who
ventures to argue with professed theologians, critics,
or geologists, though without positive defects in know-
ledge of his subject. Priestley, great in electricity and
chemistry, was but a poor ecclesiastical historian. The
z 2
340 Inference.
Author of the Minute Philosopher is also the Author of
the Analyst. Newton wrote not only his " Principia/'
but his comments on the Apocalypse ; Cromwell, whose
actions savoured of the boldest logic, was a confused
speaker. In these, and various similar instances, the
defect lay, not so much in an ignorance of facts, as in an
inability to handle those facts suitably; in feeble or
perverse modes of abstraction, observation, comparison,
analysis, inference, which nothing could have obviated,
but that which was wanting, — a specific talent, and a
ready exercise of it.
I have already referred to the faculty of memory in
illustration ; it will serve me also here. We can form
an abstract idea of memory, and call it one faculty,
which has for its subject-matter all past facts of our
personal experience ; but this is really only an illusion ;
for there is no such gift of universal memory. Of
course we all remember in a way, as we reason, in all
subject-matters ; but I am speaking of remembering
rightly, as I spoke of reasoning rightly. In real fact
memory, as a talent, is not one indivisible faculty, but a
power of retaining and recalling the past in this or that
department of our experience, not in any whatever.
Two memories, which are both specially retentive, may
also be incommensurate. Some men can recite the
canto of a poem, or good part of a speech, after once
reading it, but have no head for dates. Others have
gTeat capacity for the vocabulary of languages, but
recollect nothing of the small occurrences of the day or
year. Others never forget any statement which they
have read, and can give volume and page, but have no
Natural Inference. 341
memory for faces. I have known those who could,
without effort, run through the succession of days on
which Easter fell for years back ; or could say where
they were, or what they were doing, on a given day, in
a given year ; or could recollect accurately the Chris-
tian names of friends and strangers; or could enumerate
in exact order the names on all the shops from Hyde
Park Corner to the Bank ; or had so mastered the Uni-
versity Calendar as to be able to bear an examination in
the academical history of any M,A. taken at random.
And I believe in most of these cases the talent, in its
exceptional character, did not extend beyond several
classes of subjects. There are a hundred memories, as
there are a hundred virtues. Virtue is one indeed in the
abstract ; but, in fact, gentle and kind natures are not
therefore heroic, and prudent and self-controlled minds
need not be open-handed. At the utmost such virtue is
ohe only in posse ; as developed in the concrete, it
takes the shape of species which in no sense imply each
other.
So is it with Ratiocination ; and as we should betake
ourselves to Newton for physical, not for theological
conclusions, and to Wellington for his military expe-
rience, not for statesmanship, so the maxim holds good
generally, " Cuique in arte sua credendum est : *' or, to
use the grand words of Aristotle, " We are bound to
give heed to the undemonstrated sayings and opinions
of the experienced and aged, not less than to demonstra-
tions ; because, from their having the eye of experience,
they behold the principles of things." ^ Instead of
1 Eth. Nicom. vi. 11, fin.
342 Inference.
trusting logical science, we must trust persons, namely,
those who by long acquaintance with their subject have
a right to judge. And if we wish ourselves to share in
their convictions and the grounds of them, we must fol-
low their history, and learn as they have learned. We
must take up their particular subject as they took it up,
beginning at the beginning, give ourselves to it, depend
on practice and experience more than on reasoning, and
thus gain that mental insight into truth, whatever its
subject-matter may be, which our masters have gained
before us. By following this course, we may make
ourselves of their number, and then we rightly lean
upon ourselves, directing ourselves by our own moral or
intellectual judgment, not by our skill in argumentation.
This doctrine, stated in substance as above by the
great philosopher of antiquity, is more fully expounded
in a passage which he elsewhere quotes from Hesiod.
" Best of all is he,^' says that poet, " who is wise by h's
own wit; next best he who is wise by the wit of
others ; but whoso is neither able to see, nor willing to
hear, he is a good-for-nothing fellow." Judgment then
in all concrete matter is the architectonic faculty ; and
what may be called the Illative Sense, or right judgment
in ratiocination, is one branch of it.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ILLATIVE SENSE.
My object in tlie foregoing pages has been, not to form
a theory which may account for those phenomena of the
intellect of which they treat, viz. those which characterize
inference and assent, but to ascertain what is the matter
of fact as regards them, that is, when it is that assent is
given to propositions which are inferred, and under what
circumstances. I have never had the thought of an
attempt which in me would be ambitious, and which
has failed in the hands of others, — if that attempt may
fairly 'be called unsuccessful, which, though made by
the acutest minds, has not succeeded in convincing
opponents. Especially have I found myself unequal to
antecedent reasonings in the instance of a matter of fact.
There are those, who, arguing a priori, maintain, that,
since experience leads by syllogism only to probabilities,
certitude is ever a mistake. There are others, who, while
they deny this conclusion, grant the a priori principle
assumed in the argument, and in consequence are obliged,
in order to vindicate the certainty of our knowledge, to
have recourse to the hypothesis of intuitions, intellectual
344 The Illative Sense.
forms, and the like, which belong to us by nature, and
may be considered to elevate our experience into some-
thing more than it is in itself. Earnestly maintaining,
as I would, with this latter school of philosophers, the
certainty of knowledge, I think it enough to appeal to
the common voice of mankind in proof of it. That is to
be accounted a normal operation of our nature, which men
in general do actually instance. That is a law of our
minds, which is exemplified in action on a large scale,
whether a ■priori it ought to be a law or no. Our hoping
is a proof that hope, as such, is not an extravagance ;
and our possession of certitude is a proof that it is not a
weakness or an absurdity to be certain. How it comes
about that we can be certain is not my business to deter-
mine ; for me it is sufficient that certitude is felt. This
is what the schoolmen, I believe, call treating a subject
in facto esse, in contrast with in fieri. Had I attempted
the' latter, I should have been falling into metaphysics ;
but my aim is of a practical character, such as that of
Butler in his Analogy, with this difference, that he treats
of probability, doubt, expedience, and duty, whereas
in these pages, without exclu(Jing, far from it, the
question of duty, I would confine myself to the truth
of things, and to the mind's certitude of that truth.
Certitude is a mental state : certainty is a quality of
propositions. Those propositions I call certain, which
are such that I am certain of them. Certitude is not a
passive impression made upon the mind from without,
by argumentative compulsion, but in all concrete ques-
tions (nay, even in abstract, for though the reasoning is
abstract, the mind which judges of it is concrete) it is
The Illative Sense. 345
an active recognition of propositions as true, such, as it
is the duty of each individual himself to exercise at the
bidding of reason, and, when reason forbids, to withhold.
And reason never bids us be certain except on an abso-
lute proof; and such a proof can never be furnished to
us by the logic of words, for as certitude is of the mind,
so is the act of inference which leads to it. Every one
who reasons, is his own centre ; and no expedient for
attaining a common measure of minds can reverse this
truth ; — but then the question follows, is there any
criterion of the accuracy of an inference, such as may be
our warrant that certitude is rightly elicited in favour of
the proposition inferred, since our warrant cannot, as I
have said, be scientific ? I have already said that the
sole and final judgment on the validity of an inference
in concrete matter is committed to the personal action
of the ratiocinative faculty, the perfection or virtue of
which I have called the Illative Sense, a use of the word
*^ sense" parallel to our use of it in "good sense,"
" common sense," a " sense of beauty," &c. ; — and I
own I do not see any way to go farther than this in
answer to the question. However, I can at least explain
my meaning more fully ; and therefore I will now speak,
first of the sanction of the Illative Sense, next of its
nature, and then of its range.
•346 The Illative Sense.
§ 1. The Sanction of the Illative Sense.
We are in a world of facts, and we use them ; for there
is nothing else to use. We do not quarrel with them,
but we take them as they are, and avail ourselves of
what they can do for us. It would be out of place to
demand of fire, water, earth, and air their credentials, so
to say, for acting upon us, or ministering to us. We call
them elements, and turn them to account, and make the
most of them. We speculate on them at our leisure.
But what we are still less able to doubt about or annul,
at our leisure or not, is that which is at once their
counterpart and their witness, I mean, ourselves. We
are conscious of the objects of external nature, and
we reflect and act upon them, and this consciousness,
reflection, and action we call our i-ationality. And as
we use the (so called) elements without first criticizing
what we have no command over, so is it much more un-
meaning in us to criticize or find fault with our own
nature, which is nothing else than we ourselves, instead
of using it according to the use of which it ordinarily
admits. Our being, with its faculties, mind and body,
is a fact not admitting of question, all things being of
necessity referred to it, not it to other things.
J
The Sanction of the Illative Sense, 347
If I may not assume that I exist, and in a particular
way, that is, with a particular mental constitution, I
have nothing to speculate about, and had better let
speculation alone. Such as I am, it is my all ; this is
my essential stand-point, and must be taken for granted ;
otherwise, thought is bat an idle amusement, not worth
the trouble. There is no medium between using my
faculties, as I have them, and flinging myself upon the
external world according to the random impulse of the
moment, as spray upon the surface of the waves, and
simply forgetting that I am.
I am what I am, or I am nothing. I cannot think,
reflect, or judge about my being, without starting from
the very point which I aim at concluding. My ideas
are all assumptions, and I am ever moving in a circle.
I cannot avoid being sufiicient for myself, for I cannot
make myself anything else, and to change me is to
destroy me. If I do not use myself, I have no other
self to use. My only business is to ascertain what I
am, in order to put it to use. It is enough for the
proof of the value and authority of any function which
I possess, to be able to pronounce that it is natural.
What I have to ascertain is the laws under which I
live. My first elementary lesson of duty is that of
resignation to the laws of my nature, whatever they
are ; my first disobedience is to be impatient at what I
am, and to indulge an ambitious aspiration after what
I cannot be, to cherish a distrust of my powers, and to
desire to change laws which are identical with myself.
Truths such as these, which are too obvious to be
called irresistible, are illustrated by what we see iu
34 8 The Illative Sense.
universal nature. Every being is in a true sense suf-
ficient for itself, so as to be able to fulfil its particular
needs. It is a general law that, whatever is found as
a function or an attribute of any class of beings, or is
natural to it, is in its substance suitable to it, and
subserves its existence, and cannot be rightly regarded
as a fault or enormity. No being could endure, of
which the constituent parts were at war with each
other. And more than this ; there is that principle of
vitality in every being, which is of a sanative and
restorative character, and which brings all its parts
and functions together into one whole, and is ever
repelling and correcting the mischiefs which befall it,
whether from within or without, while showing no
tendency to cast ofi" its belongings as if foreign to its
nature. The brute animals are found severally with
limbs and organs, habits, instincts, appetites, surround-
ings, which play together for the safety and welfare of
the whole ; and, after all exceptions, may be said each
of them to have, after its own kind, a perfection of
nature. Man is the highest of the animals, and more
indeed than an animal, as having a mind ; that is, he
has a complex nature different from theirs, with a
higher aim and a specific perfection; but still the fact
that other beings find their good in the use of their
particular nature, is a reason for anticipating that
to use duly our own is our interest as well as our
necessity.
What is the peculiarity of our nature, in contrast
with the inferior animals around us ? It is that, though
man cannot change what he is born with, he is a being
The Sanction of the Illative Sense. 349
of progress ■with relation to his perfection and charac-
teristic good. Other beings are complete from their
first existence, in that line of excellence which is allotted
to them ; but man begins with nothing realized (to use
the word), and he has to make capital for himself by
the exercise of those faculties which are his natural
inheritance. Thus he gradually advances to the ful-
ness of his original destiny. Nor is this progress
mechanical, nor is it of necessity ; it is committed to
the personal efforts of each individual of the species ;
each of us has the prerogative of completing his inchoate
and rudimental nature, and of developing his own per-
fection out of the living elements with which his mind
began to be. It is his gift to be the creator of his owii
sufficiency; and to be emphatically self-made. This, is
the law of his being, which he cannot escape; and
whatever is involved in that law he is bound, or rather
he is carried on, to fulfil.
And here I am brought to the bearing of these re-
marks upon my subject. For this law of progress is
carried out by means of the acquisition of knowledge,
of which inference and assent are the immediate instru-
ments. Supposing, then, the advancement of our
nature, both in ourselves individually and as regards
the human family, is, to every one of us in his place, a
sacred duty, it follows that that duty is intimately bound
up with the right use of these two main instruments of
fulfilling it. And as we do not gain the knowledge of
the law of progress by any a priori view of man, but
by looking at it as the interpretation which is provided
by. himself on a large scale in the ordinary action of
350 The Illative Se7ise.
his intellectual nature, so too we must appeal to him-
self, as a fact, and not to any antecedent theory, in
order to find what is the law of his mind as regards
the two faculties in question. If then such an appeal
does bear me out in deciding, as I have done, that the
course of inference is ever more or less obscure, while
assent is ever distinct and definite, and yet that what
is in its nature thus absolute does, in fact follow upon
what in outward manifestation is thus complex, in-
direct, and recondite, what is left to us but to take
things as they are, and to resign ourselves to what we
find ? that is, instead of devising, what cannot be,
some sufficient science of reasoning which may compel
certitude in concrete conclusions, to confess that there
is no ultimate test of truth besides the testimony born
to truth by the mind itself, and that this phenomenon,
perplexing as we may find it, is a normal and inevitable
characteristic of the mental constitution of a being like
man on a stage such as the world. His progress is a
living growth, not a mechanism ; and its instruments
ai'e mental acts, not the formulas and contrivances of
language.
We are accustomed in this day to lay great stress
upon the harmony of the universe ; and we have well
learned the maxim so powerfully inculcated by our own
English philosopher, that in our inquiries into its laws,
we must sternly destroy all idols of the intellect, and
subdue nature by co-operating with her. Knowledge
is power, for it enables us to use eternal principles which
we cannot alter. So also is it in that microcosm, the
human mind. Let us follow Bacon more closely than
The Sanction of the Illative Sense. 351
to distort its faculties according to the demands of an
ideal optimism, instead of looking out for modes of
thought proper to our nature, and faithfully observing
them in our intellectual exercises.
Of course I do not stop here. As the structure of
the universe speaks to us of Him who made it, so the
laws of the mind are the expression, not of mere con-
stituted order, but of His will. I should be bound by
them even were they not His laws ; but since one of
their very functions is to tell me of Him, they throw
a reflex light upon themselves, and, for resignation to
my destiny, I substitute a cheerful concurrence in an
overruling Providence. We may gladly welcome such
difficulties as are to be found in our mental constitution,
and in the interaction of our faculties, if we are able to
feel that He gave them to us, and He can overrule them
for us. We may securely take them as they are, and
use them as we find them. It is He who teaches us all
knowledge ; and the way by which we acquire it is His
way. He varies that way according to the subject-
matter ; but whether He has set before us in our par-
ticular pursuit the way of observation or of experiment,
of speculation or of research, of demonstration or of
probability, whether we are inquiring into the system
of the universe, or into the elements of matter and of
life, or into the history of human society and past
times, if we take the way proper to our subject-matter,
we have His blessing upon us, and shall find, besides
abundant matter for mere opinion, the materials in due
measure of proof and assent.
And especially, by this disposition of things, shall
352 The Illative Sense.
we learn, as regards religious and ethical inquiries, how
little we can effect, however much we exert ourselves,
without that Blessing ; for, as if on set purpose, He
has made this path of thought rugged and circuitous
above other investigations, that the very discipline in-
flicted on our minds in finding Him, may mould them
into due devotion to Him when He is found. " Yerily
Thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Saviour,"
is the very law of His dealings with us. Certainly we
need a clue into the labyrinth which is to lead us to
Him ; and who among us can hope to seize upon the
true starting-points of thought for that enterprise, and
upon all of them, who is to understand their right
direction, to follow them out to their just limits, and
duly to estimate, adjust, and combine the various
reasonings in which they issue, so as safely to arrive
at what it is worth any labour to secure, without a
special illumination from Himself? Such are the deal-
ings of Wisdom with the elect soul. " She will bring
upon him fear, and dread, and trial ; and She will tor-
ture him with the tribulation of Her discipline, till She
try him by Her laws, and trust his soul. Then She
will strengthen him, and make Her way straight to
him, and give him joy."
TJie Nature of the Illative Sense. 35;
§ 2. The Natuee op the Illative Sense.
It is the mind that reasons, and that controls its own
reasonings, not any technical apparatus of words and
propositions. This power of judging and concluding,
when in its perfection, I call the Illative Sense, and I
shall best illustrate it by referring to parallel faculties,
which we commonly recognize without difficulty.
For instance, how does the mind fulfil its function
of supreme direction and control, in matters of duty,
social intercourse, and taste ? In all of these separate
actions of the intellect, the individual is supreme, and
responsible to himself, nay, under circumstances, may
be justified in opposing himself to the judgment of
the whole world ; though he uses rules to his great
advantage, as far as they go, and is in consequence
bound to use them. As regards moral duty, the sub-
ject is fully considered in the well-known ethical
treatises of Aristotle.' He calls the faculty which
^ Though Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, speaks of <pp6v(\<ns as
the virtue of the hol^aariKbv generally, and as being concerned generally
with contingent matter (vi. 4), or what I have called the concrete, and
of its function being, as regards that matter, a.\ri9tvfiv Tcp Kara<pavai ^
aTo<p6.vai {ibid. 3), he does not treat of it in that work in its general
relation to truth and the aflSrmation of truth, but only as it bears upon
TO. npoKTix.
A a
354 '^^^^ Illative Sense.
guides the mind in matters of conduct^ by the name of
phronesis, or judgment. This is the directing, con-
trolling, and determining principle in such matters,
personal and social. What it is to be virtuous, how
we are to gain the just idea and standard of virtue,
how we are to approximate in practice to our own
standard, what is right and wrong in a particular case,
for the answers in fulness and accuracy to these and
similar questions, the philosopher refers us to no code
of laws, to no moral treatise, because no science of
life, applicable to the case of an individual, has been
or can be written. Such is Aristotle's doctrine, and it
is undoubtedly true. An ethical system may supply
laws, general rules, guiding principles, a number of
examples, suggestions, landmarks, limitations, cau-
tions, distinctions, solutions of critical or anxious
difficulties ; but who is to apply them to a particular
case ? whither can we go, except to the living intellect,
our own, or another's ? What is written is too vague, too
negative for our need. It bids us avoid extremes ; but
it cannot ascertain for us, according to our personal
need, the golden mean. The authoritative oracle,
which is to decide our path, is something more search-
ing and manifold than such jejune generalizations as
treatises can give, which are most distinct and clear
when we least need them. It is seated in the mind of
the individual, who is thus his own law, his own
teacher, and his own judge in those special cases of
duty which are personal to him. It comes of an ac-
quired habit, though it has its first origin in nature
itself, and it is formed and matured by practice and
The Nature of the Illative Sense. 355
experience ; and it manifests itself, not in any breadth
of view, any philosopliical comprehension of the mutual
relations of duty towards duty, or any consistency in
its teachings, but it is a capacity sufficient for the
occasion, deciding what ought to be done here and
now, by this given person, under these given circum-
stances. It decides nothing hypothetical, it does not
determine what a man should do ten years hence, or
what another should do at this time. It may indeed
happen to decide ten years hence as it does now, and
to decide a second case now as it now decides a first ;
still its present act is for the present, not for the dis-
tant or the future.
State or public law is inflexible, but this mental
rule is not only minute and particular, but has an elas-
ticity, which, in its application to individual cases, is,
as I have said, not studious to maintain the appearance
of consistency. In old times the mason^s rule which
was in use at Lesbos was, according to Aristotle, not
of wood or iron, but of lead, so as to allow of its ad-
justment to the uneven surface of the stones brought
together for the work. By such the philosopher illus-
trates the nature of equity in contrast with law, and
such is that phronesis, from which the science of
morals forms its rules, and receives its complement.
In this respect of course the law of truth differs
from the law of duty, that duties change, but truths
never; but, though truth is ever one and the same,
and the assent of certitude is immutable, still the
reasonings which carry us on to truth and certitude
are many and distinct, and vary with the inquirer ; and
A a 2
356 The Illative Sense.
it is not with assent, but with the controlling principle
in inferences that I am comparing ph-onesis. It is with
this drift that I observe that the rule of conduct for
one man is not always the rule for another, though the
rule is always one and the same in the abstract, and in
its principle and scope. To learn his own duty in his
own case, each individual must have recourse to his
own rule ; and if his rule is not sufficiently developed
in his intellect for his need, then he goes to some
other living, present authority, to supply it for him,
not to the dead letter of a treatise or a code. A
living, present authority, himself or another, is his
immediate guide in matters of a personal, social, or
political character. In buying and selling, in con-
tracts, in his treatment of others, in giving and receiv-
ing, in thinking, speaking, doing, and working, in
toil, in danger, in his recreations and pleasures, every
one of his acts, to be praiseworthy, must be in accord-
ance with this practical sense. Thus it is, and not by
science, that he perfects the virtues of justice, self-
command, magnanimity, generosity, gentleness, and all
others. Phronesis is the regulating principle of every
One of them.
These last words lead me to a further remark. I
doubt whether it is correct, strictly speaking, to con-
sider this phronesis as a general faculty, directing and
perfecting all the virtues at once. So understood, it
is little better than an abstract term, including under
it a circle of analogous faculties, severally proper to
the separate virtues. Properly speaking, there are as
many kinds of phronesis as there are virtues ; for the
The Nature of the Illative Sense. 357
judgment, good sense, or tact whicli is conspicuous in
a man^s conduct in one subject-matter, is not neces-
sarily traceable in another. As in the parallel cases of
memory and reasoning, he may be great in one aspect
of his character, and little-minded in another. He
may be exemplary in his family, yet commit a fraud
on the revenue ; he may be just and cruel, brave and
sensual, imprudent and patient. And if this be true
of the moral virtues, it holds good still more fully when
we compare what is called his private character with
his public. A good man may make a bad king ; pro-
fligates have been great statesmen, or magnanimous
political leaders.
So, too, I may go on to speak of the various callings
and professions which give scope to the exercise of
great talents, for these talents also are matured, not
by mere rule, but by personal skill and sagacity.
They are as diverse as pleading and cross-examining,
conducting a debate in Parliament, swaying a public
meeting, and commanding an army ; and here, too, I
observe that, though the directing principle in each
case is called by the same name, — sagacity, skill, tact,
or prudence, — still there is no one ruling faculty lead-
ing to eminence in all these various lines of action
in common, but men 'v^U excel in one of them, without
any talent for the rest.
The parallel may be continued in the case of the
Fine Arts, in which, though true and scientific rules
may be given, no one would therefore deny that Phi-
dias or Rafael had a far more subtle standard of taste
and a more versatile power of embodying it in his
35^ The Illative Sense.
works, than any which he could communicate to others
in even a series of treatises. And here again genius
is indissolubly united to one definite subject-matter ;
a poet is not therefore a painter, or an architect a
musical composer.
And so, again, as regards the useful arts and per-
sonal accomplishments, we use the same word " skill,"
but proficiency in engineering or in ship-building, or
again in engraving, or again in singing, in playing
instruments, in acting, or in gymnastic exercises, is as
simply one with its particular subject-matter, as the
human soul with its particular body, and is, in its own
department, a sort of instinct or inspiration, not an
obedience to external rules of criticism or of science.
It is natural, then, to ask the question, why ratio-
cination should be an exception to a general law which
attaches to the intellectual exercises of the mind ; why
it is held to be commensurate with logical science ; and
why logic is made an instrumental art suflficient for
determining every sort of truth, while no one would
dream of making any one formula, however generalized,
a working rule at once for poetry, the art of medicine,
and political warfare ?
This is what I have to remark concerning the Illative
Sense, and in explanation of its nature and claims;
and on the whole, I have spoken of it in four respects,
— as viewed in itself, in its subject-matter, in the pro-
cess it uses, and in its function and scope.
First, viewed in its exercise, it is one and the same
in all concrete matters, though employed in them in
diflferent measures. We do not reason in one way in
The Nahire of the Illative Sense. 359
chemistry or law, in another in morals or religion ; but
in reasoning on any subject whatever, which is con-
crete, we proceed, as far indeed as we can, by the logic
of language, but we are obliged to supplement it by the
more subtle and elastic logic of thought ; for forms by
themselves prove nothing.
Secondly, it is in fact attached to definite subject-
matters, so that a given individual may possess it in
one department of thought, for instance, history, and
not in another, for instance, philosophy.
Thirdly, in coming to its conclusion, it proceeds always
in the same way, by a method of reasoning, which, as I
have observed above, is the elementary principle of that
mathematical calculus of modern times, which has so
wonderfully extended the limits of abstract science.
Fourthly, in no class of concrete reasonings, whether
in experimental science, historical research, or theology,
is there any ultimate test of truth and error in our
inferences besides the trustworthiness of the Illative
Sense that gives them its sanction ; just as there is no
sufficient test of poetical excellence, heroic action, or
gentleman -like conduct, other than the particular mental
sense, be it genius, taste, sense of propriety, or the moral
sense, to which those subject-matters are severally com-
mitted. Our duty in each of these is to strengthen and
perfect the special faculty which is its living rule, and
in every case as it comes to do our best. And such also
is our duty and our necessity, as regards the Illative
Sense.
360 TJie Illative Sense.
§ 3. The Range of the Illative Sense.
Great as are the services of language in enabling us to
extend the compass of our inferences, to test their validity,
and to communicate them to others, still the mind itself
is more versatile and vigorous than any of its works, of
which language is one, and it is only under its pene-
trating and subtle action that the margin disappears,
which I have described as intervening between verbal
argumentation and conclusions in the concrete. It
determines what science cannot determine, the limit of
converging probabilities and the reasons suflBcient for a
proof. It is the ratiocinative mind itself, and no trick of
art, however simple in its form and sure in operation,
by which we are able to determine, and thereupon to
be certain, that a moving body left to itseK will never
stop, and that no man can live without eating.
Nor, again, is it by any diagram that we are able to
scrutinize, sort, and combine the many premisses which
must be first run together before we answer duly a
given question. It is to the living mind that we must
look for the means of using correctly principles of what-
ever kind, facts or doctrines, experiences or testimonies,
true or probable, and of discerning what conclusion
The Range of the Illative Sense. 361
from these is necessary, suitable, or expedient, when
they are taken for granted ; and this, either by means
of a natural gift, or from mental formation and practice
and a long familiarity with those various starting-points.
Thus, when Laud said that he did not see his way to
come to terms with the Holy See, " till Rome was other
than she was," no Catholic would admit the sentiment :
but any Cathohc may understand that this is just the
judgment consistent with Laud's actual condition of
thought and cast of opinions, his ecclesiastical position,
and the existing state of England.
Nor, lastly, is an action of the mind itself less neces-
sary in relation to those first elements of thought which
in all reasoning are assumptions, the principles, tastes,
and opinions, very often of a peirsonal character, which
are half the battle in the inference with which the
reasoning is to terminate. It is the mind itself that
detects them in their obscure recesses, illustrates them,
establishes them, eliminates them, resolves them into
simpler ideas, as the case may be. The mind contem-
plates them without the use of words, by a process which
cannot be analyzed. Thus it was that Bacon separated
the physical system of the world from the theological ;
thus that Butler connected together the moral system
with the religious. Logical formulas could never have
sustained the reasonings involved in such investigations.
Thus the Illative Sense, that is, the reasoning faculty,
as exercised by gifted, or by educated or otherwise well-
prepared minds, has its function in thebeginning, middle,
and end of all verbal discussion and inquiry, and in every
step of the process. It is a rule to itself, and appeals to
362 The Illative Sense.
no judgment beyond its own; and attends uponthewhole
course of thought from antecedents to consequents, with
a minute diligence and unwearied presence, which is
impossible to a cumbrous apparatus of verbal reasoning,
though, in communicating with others, words are the
only instrument we possess, and. a serviceable, though
imperfect instrument.
One function indeed there is of Logic, to which I have
referred in the preceding sentence, which the Illative
Sense does not and cannot perform. It supplies no
common measure between mind and mind, as being
nothing else than a personal gift or acquisition. Few
there are, as I said above, who are good reasoners on
all subject-matters. Two men, who reason well each in
his own province of thought, may, one or both of them,
fail and pronounce opposite judgments on a question
belonging to some third province. Moreover, all reason-
ing being from premisses, and those premisses arising
(if it so happen) in their first elements from personal
characteristics, in which men are in fact in essential and
irremediable variance one with another, the ratiocinative
talent can do no more than point out where the diffe-
rence between them lies, how far it is immaterial, when
it is worth while continuing an argument between them,
and when not.
Now of the three main occasions of the exercise of the
Illative Sense, which I have been insisting on, and which
are the measure of its range, the start, the course, and
the issue of an inquiry, I have already, in treating of
Informal Inference, shown the place it holds in the final
resolution of concrete questions. Here then it is left to
The Range of the Illative Sense. 363
me to illustrate its presence and action in relation to
the elementary premisses, and, again, to the conduct
of an argument. And first of the latter.
1.
There has been a great deal written of late years on
the subject of the state of Greece and Rome during the
pre-historic period ; let us say before the Olympiads in
Greece, and the war with Pyrrhus in the annals of Rome.
Now, in a question like this, it is plain that the inquirer
has first of all to decide on the point from which he is to
start in the presence of the received accounts ; on what
side, from what quarter he is to approach them ; on what
principles his discussion is to be conducted ; what he is
to assume, what opinions or objections he is summarily
to put aside as nugatory, what arguments, and when, he
is to consider as apposite, what false issues are to be
avoided, when the state of his arguments is ripe for a
conclusion. Is he to commence with absolutely dis-
carding all that has hitherto been received ; or to retain
it in outline ; or to make selections from it ; or to con-
sider and interpret it as mythical, or as allegorical ; or
to hold so much to be trustworthy, or at least of 'prima
facie authority, as he cannot actually disprove; or never
to destroy except in proportion as he can construct ?
Then, as to the kind of arguments suitable or admissible,
how far are tradition, analogy, isolated monuments and
records, ruins, vague reports, legends, the facts or
sayings of later times, language, popular proverbs, to
tell in the inquiry ? what are marks of truth, what of
364 The Illative Sense.
falsehood, what is probable, what suspicious, what pro-
mises well for discriminating facts from fictions ? Then,
arguments have to be balanced against each other, and
then lastly the decision is to be made, whether any con-
clusion at all can be drawn, or whether any befoi'e
certain issues are tried and settled, or whether a pro-
bable conclusion or a certain. It is plain how incessant
will be the call here or there for the exercise of a
definitive judgment, how little that judgment will be
helped on by logic, and how intimately it will be de-
pendent upon the intellectual complexion of the writer.
This might be illustrated at great length, were it
necessary, from the writings of any of those able men,
whose names are so well known in connexion with the
subject I have instanced; such as Niebuhr, Mr. Clinton,
Sir George Lewis, Mr. Grote, and Colonel Mure. These
authors have severally views of their own on the period
of history which they have selected for investigation,
and they are too learned and logical not to know and
to use to the utmost the testimonies by which the facts
which they investigate are to be ascei'tained. Why
then do they differ so much from each other, whether
in their estimate of those testimonies or of those facts?
because that estimate is simply their own, coming of
their own judgment ; and that judgment coming of
assumptions of their own, explicit or implicit j and
those assumptions spontaneously issuing out of the state
of thought respectively belonging to each of them \
and all these successive processes of minute reasoning
superintended and directed by an intellectual instru-
ment far too subtle and spiritual to be scientific.
The Range of the Illative Sense. 365
What was Niebuhr's idea of the office he had under-
taken ? I suppose it was to accept what he found in
the historians of Rome, to interrogate it, to take it to
pieces, to put it together again, to re-arrange and in-
terpret it. Prescription together with internal con-
sistency was to him the evidence of fact, and if he pulled
down he felt he was bound to build up. Very different
is the spirit of another school of writers, with whom
prescription is nothing, and who will admit no evidence
which has not first proved its right to be admitted.
" We are able," says Niebuhr, '^ to trace the history of
the Roman constitution back to the beginning of the
Commonwealth, as accurately as we wish, and even
more perfectly than the history of many portions of the
middle ages.'' But, '' we may rejoice," says Sir George
Lewis, " that the ingenuity or learning of Niebuhr
should have enabled him to advance many noble hypo-
theses and conjectures respecting the form of the early
constitution of Rome, but, unless he can support those
hypotheses by sufficient evidence, they are not entitled
to our belief. " Niebuhr," says a writer nearly related
to myself, " often expresses much contempt for mere
incredulous criticism and negative conclusions ; . . yet
wisely to disbelieve is our first grand requisite in deahng
with materials of mixed worth." And Sir George
Lewis again, " It may be said that there is scarcely any
of the leading conclusions of Niebuhr's work which has
not been impugned by some subsequent writer."
Again, " It is true," says Niebuhr, " that the Trojan
war belongs to the region of fable, yet undeniably it has
an historical foundation." But Mr. Grote writes, '^ If
366 The Illative Sense.
we are asked whether the Trojan war is not a legend
. . raised upon a basis of truth, . . our answer must
be, that, as the possibility of it cannot be denied,
so neither can the reality of it be affirmed/' On the
other hand, Mr. Clinton lays down the general rule,
" We may acknowledge as real persons, all those whom
there is no reason for rejecting. The presumption is
in favour of the early tradition, if no argument can be
brought to overthrow it." Thus he lodges the onus
prohatidi with those who impugn the received accounts ;
but Mr. Grote and Sir George Lewis throw it upon
those who defend them. " Historical evidence/' says
the latter, ^Ms founded on the testimony of credible
witnesses." And again, " It is perpetually assumed in
practice, that historical evidence is different in its nature
from other sorts of evidence. This laxity seems to be
justified by the doctrine of taking the best evidence
which can be obtained. The object of [my] inquiry will
be to apply to the early Roman history the same rules of
evidence which are applied by common consent to modern
history." Far less severe is the judgment of Colonel
Mure : "Where no positive historical proof is affirmable,
the balance of historical probability must reduce itself
very much to a reasonable indulgence to the weight of
national conviction, and a deference to the testimony of
the earliest native authorities." "Reasonable indul-
gence " to popular belief, '' deference " to ancient tradi-
tion, are principles of writing history abhorrent to the
judicial temper of Sir George Lewis. He considers the
words "reasonable indulgence " to be " ambiguous," and
observes that " the very point which cannot be taken
The Range of the Illative Sense. 367
for granted, and in which writers differ, is, as to theextent
to which contemporary attestation may be presumed
without direct and positive proof, . . the extent to
which the existence of a popular belief concerning a
supposed matter of fact authorizes the inference that it
grew out of authentic testimony/' And Mr. Grote ob-
serves to the same effect : " The word tradition is an
equivocal word, and begs the whole question. It is
tacitly understood to imply a tale descriptive of some
real matter of fact, taking rise at the time when the fact
happened, originally accurate, but corrupted by oral
transmission.^' And Lewis, who quotes the passage,
adds, " This tacit understanding is the key-stone of the
whole argument."
I am not contrasting these various opinions of able
men, who have given themselves to historical research,
as if it were any reflection on them that they differ from
each other. It is the cause of their differing on which
I wish to insist. Taking the facts by themselves,
probably these authors would come to no conclusion at
all ; it is the " tacit understandings ^' which Mr. Grote
speaks of, the vague and impalpable notions of " reason-
ableness " on his own side as well as on that of others,
which both make conclusions possible, and are the pledge
of their being contradictory. The conclusions vary with .
the particular writer, for each writes from his own point
of view and with his own principles, and these admit
of no common measure.
This in fact is their own account of the matter :
" The results of speculative historical inquiry," says
Colonel Mure, " can rarely amount to more than fair
368 The Illative Sense.
presumption of the reality of the events in question, as
limited to their general substance, not as extending to
their details. Nor can there consequently be expected
in the minds of different inquirers any such unity
regarding the precise degree of reality, as may fre-
quently exist in respect to events attested by docu-
mentary evidence/' Mr. Grote corroborates this de-
cision by the striking instance of the diversity of
existing opinions concerning the Homeric Poems. ''Our
means of knowledge,'^ he says, " are so limited, that no
one can produce arguments sufficiently cogent to con-
tend against opposing preconceptions, and it creates a
painful sensation of diffidence, when we read the expres-
sions of equal and absolute persuasion with which the
two opposite conclusions have both been advanced."
And again, " There is a difference of opinion among
the best critics, which is probably not destined to be
adjusted, since so much depends partly upon critical
feeling, partly upon the general reasonings in respect
to ancient epical unity, with which a man sits down to
the study." Exactly so ; every one has his own
"critical feeling," his antecedent "reasonings," and
in consequence his own " absolute persuasion," coming
in fresh and fresh at every turn of the discussion ) and
who, whether stranger or friend, is to reach and affect
what is so intimately bound up with the mental con-
stitution of each ?
Hence the categorical contradictions between one
writer and another, which abound. Colonel Mure
appeals in defence of an historical thesis to the " fact of
the Hellenic confederacy combining for the adoption of
The Range of the Illative Sense. 369
a common national system of chronology in 776 b.c/'
Mr. Grote replies : " Nothing is more at variance with,
my conception," — ^he just now spoke of the precon-
ceptions of others, — " of the state of the Hellenic world
in 776 B.C., than the idea of a combination among all
the members of the race for any purpose, much more
for the purpose of adopting a common national system
of chronology." Colonel Mure speaks of the " bigoted
Athenian public ;" Mr. Grote replies that " no public
ever less deserved the epithet of ' bigoted ' than the
Athenian.'*^ Colonel Mure also speaks of Mr. Grote's
^' arbitrary hypothesis /' and again (in Mr. Grote's words),
of his " unreasonable scepticism." He cannot disprove
by mere argument the conclusions of Mr. Grote ; he can
but have recourse to a personal criticism. He virtually
says, *' We differ in our personal view of things." Men
become personal when logic fails ; it is their mode of
appealing to their own primary elements of thought,
and their own illative sense, against the principles and
the judgment of another.
I have already touched upon Niebuhr^s method of
investigation, and Sir George Lewis's dislike of it : it
supplies us with as apposite an instance of a difference in
first principles as is afforded by Mr. Grote and Colonel
Mure. " The main characteristic of his history," says
Lewis, " is the extent to which he relies upon internal
evidence, and upon the indications afforded by the nar-
rative itself, independently of the testimony of its truth."
And, " Ingenuity and labour can produce nothing but
hypotheses and conjectures, which may be supported by
analogies, but can never rest upon the solid foundation
Bb
3 JO The Illative Sense.
of proof." And it is undeniable, that, rightly or wrongly,
disdaining the scepticism of the mere critic, Niebuhr
does consciously proceed by the high path of divination.
" For my own part," he says, " I divine that, since the
censorship of Fabius and Decius falls in the same year,
that Cn. Flavius became mediator between his own class
and the higher orders." Lewis considers this to be a
process of guessing ; and says, " Instead of employing
those tests of credibility which are consistently applied
to modern history ," Niebuhr, and his followers, and
most of his opponents, " attempt to guide their judg-
ment by the indication of internal evidence, and assume
that the truth is discovered by an occult faculty of his-
torical divination." Niebuhr defends himself thus :
*' The real geographer has a tact which determines his
judgment and choice among different statements. He
is able from isolated statements to draw inferences re-
specting things that are unknown, which are closely
approximate to results obtained from observation of
facts, and may supply their place. He is able with
limited data to form an image of things which no eye-
witness has described." He applies this to himself.
The principle set forth in this passage is obviously
the same as I should myself advocate ; but Sir George
Lewis, though not simply denying it as a principle,
makes little account of it, when applied to historical
research. " It is not enough," he says, "for an historian
to claim the possession of a retrospective second-sight,
which is denied to the rest of the world — of a mysterious
doctrine, revealed only to the initiated." And he pro-
nounces, that " the history of Niebuhr has opened more
The Range of the Illative Sense. 371
questions than it has closed, and it has set in motion a
large body of combatants, whose mutual variances are
not at present likely to be settled by deference to a
common principle." '
We see from the above extracts how a controversy,
such as that to which they belong, is carried on from
starting-points, and with collateral aids, not formally
proved, but more or less assumed, the process of assump-
tion lying in the action of the Illative Sense, as applied
to primary elements of thought respectively congenial
to the disputants. Not that explicit argumentation on
these minute or minor, though important, points is not
sometimes possible to a certain extent ; but, as I have
said, it is too unwieldy an expedient I'or a constantly
recurring need, even when it is tolerably exact.
2.
And now secondly, as to the first principles them-
selves. In illustration, I will mention under separate
heads some of those elementary contrarieties of opinion,
on which the Illative Sense has to act, discovering them,
following them out, defending or resisting them, as the
case may be.
1. As to the statement of the case. This depends on
the particular aspect under which we view a subject,
that is, on the abstraction which forms our representa-
' Niebuhr, " Roman History," vol. i. p. 177; vol. Hi. pp. 262. 318. 322,
" Lectures," vol. iii. App. p. ixii. Lewis, " Roman History," vol. i,
pp. 11—17; vol. ii. pp. 489—492. P. W. Newman, "Regal Rome,''
p. V. Grote, "Greece," vol. ii. pp. 67, 68. 218. 630—639. Mure,
" Greece," vol. iii. p 503 ; vol. iv. p. 318. Clinton, ap. Grote, suprjk.
Bb 2
372 The Illative Sense.
tive notion of what it is. Sciences are only so many
distinct aspects of nature; sometimes suggested by
nature itself, sometimes created by the mind. (1) One
of the simplest and broadest aspects under which to view
the physical world, is that of a system of final causes,
or, on the other hand, of initial or effective causes.
Bacon, having it in view to extend our power over
nature, adopted the latter. He took firm hold of the
idea of causation (iu the common sense of the word) as
contrasted with that of design, refusing to mix up the
two ideas in one inquiry, and denouncing such tradi-
tional interpretations of facts, as did but obscure the
simplicity of the aspect necessary for his purpose. He
saw what others before him might have seen in what
they saw, but who did not see as he saw it. In this
achievement of intellect, which has been so fruitful in
results, lie his genius and his fame.
(2) So again, to refer to a very diflFerent subject-
matter, we often hear of the exploits of some great lawyer,
judge or advocate, who is able in perplexed cases, when
common minds see nothing but a hopeless heap of facts,
foreign or contrary to each other, to detect the principle
which rightly interprets the riddle, and, to the admira-
tion of all hearers, converts a chaos into an orderly and
luminous whole. This is what is meant by originality
in thinking : it is the discovery of an aspect of a subject-
matter, simpler, it may be, and more intelligible than
any hitherto taken.
(3) On the other hand, such aspects are often unreal,
as being mere exhibitions of ingenuity, not of true ori-
ginality of mind. This is especially the case in what
The Range of the Illative Sense. 2^']'}^
are called ptilosoptical views of history. Such seems to
me the theory advocated in a work of great learning,
vigour, and acuteness, Warburton^s '' Divine Legation
of Moses." I do not call Gibbon merely ingenious ;
still his account of the rise of Christianity is the mere
subjective view of one who could not enter into its
depth and power.
(4) The aspect under which we view things is often
intensely personal ; nay, even awfully so, considering
that, from the nature of the case, it does not bring
home its idiosyncrasy either to ourselves or to others.
Each of us looks at the world in his own way, and does
not know that perhaps it is characteristically his own.
This is the case even as regards the senses. Some men
have little perception of colours ; some recognize one or
two; to some men two contrary colours, as red and green,
are one and the same. How poorly can we appreciate
the beauties of nature, if our eyes discern, on the face
of things, only an Indian-ink or a drab creation !
(5) So again, as regards form : each of us abstracts
the relation of line to line in his own personal way, — as
one man might apprehend a curve as convex, another as
concave. Of course, as in the case of a curve, there may
be a limit to possible aspects ; but still, even when we
agree together, it is not perhaps that we learn one from
another, or fall under any law of agreement, but that
our separate idiosyncrasies happen to concur. I fear I
may seem trifling, if I allude to an illustration which
has ever had a great force with me, and that for the
very reason it is so trivial and minute. Children, learn-
ing to read, are sometimes presented with the letters of
374 ^^ Illative Sense.
the alphabet turned into the figures of men in various
attitudes. It is curious to observe from such represen-
tations, how differently the shape of the letters strikes
diflfereat minds. In consequence I have continually
asked the question in a chance company, which way
certain of the great letters look, to the right or to the
left ; and whereas nearly every one present had his own
clear view, so clear that he could not endure the opposite
view, still I have generally found that one half of
the party considered the letters in question to look to
the left, while the other half thought they looked to
the right.
(6) This variety of interpretation in the very elements
of outlines seems to throw light upon other cognate
diflferences between one man and another. If they look
at the mere letters of the alphabet so differently, we
may understand how it is they form such distinct
judgments upon handwriting; nay, how some men may
have a talent for decyphering from it the intellectual and
moral character of the writer, which others have not.
Another thought that occurs is, that perhaps here lies
the explanation why it is that family likenesses are so
variously recognized, and how mistakes in identity may
be dangerously frequent.
(7) If we so variously apprehend the familiar objects
of sense, still more various, we may suppose, are the
aspects and associations attached by us, one with another,
to intellectual objects. I do not say we differ in the
objects themselves, but that we may have interminable
differences as to their relations and circumstances. I
have heard say (again to take a trifling matter) that at
The Range of the Illative Sense. 375
the beginning of this century, it was a subject of serious,
nay, of angry controversy, whether it began with January
1800, or January 1801. Argument, which ought, if
in any case, to have easily brought the question to a
decision, was but sprinkling water upon a flame. I am
not clear that, if it could be fairly started now, it would
not lead to similar results ; certainly I know those who
studiously withdraw from giving an opinion on the sub-
ject, when it is accidentally mooted, from their experi-
ence of the eager feeling which it is sure to excite in some
one or other who is present. This eagerness can only
arise from an overpowering sense that the truth of the
matter lies in the one alternative, and not in the other.
These instances, because they are so casual, suggest
how it comes to pass, that men differ so widely from
each other in religious and moral perceptions. Here, I
say again, it does not prove that there is no objective
truth, because not all men are in possession of it ; or
that we are not responsible for the associations which
we attach, and the relations which we assign, to the
objects of the intellect. But this it does suggest to us,
that there is something deeper in our differences than
the accident of external circumstances ; and that we
need the interposition of a Power, greater than human
teaching and human argument, to make our beliefs
true and our minds one.
2. Next I come to the implicit assumption of definite
propositions in the first start of a course of reasoning,
and the arbitrary exclusion of others, of whatever kind.
Unless we had the right, when we pleased, of ruling that
propositions were irrelevant or absurd, I do not see how
2)7^ The Illative Sense.
we could conduct an argument at all; our way would be
simply blocked up by extravagant principles and
theories, gratuitous hypotheses, false issues, unsupported
statements, and incredible facts. There are those who
have treated the history of Abraham as an astronomical
record, and have spoken of our Adorable Saviour as the-
sun in Aries. Arabian Mythology has changed Solomon
into a mighty wizard. Noah has been considered the
patriarch of the Chinese people. The ten tribes have
been pronounced still to live in their descendants, the
Red Indians ; or to be the ancestors of the Goths and
Vandals, and thereby of the present European races.
Some have conjectured that the Apollos of the Acts of
the Apostles was Apollonius Tyaneus. Able men have
reasoned out, almost against their will, that Adam was a
negro. These propositions, and many others of various
kinds, we should think ourselves justified in passing over,
if we were engaged in a work on sacred history ; and
there are others, on the contrary, which we should assume
as true by our own right and without notice, and with-
out which we could not set about or carry on our work.
(I) However, the right of making assumptions has
been disputed; but, when the objections are examined, I
think they only go to show that we have no right in
argument to make any assumption we please. Thus,
in the historical researches which just now came before
us, it seems fair to say that no testimony should be
received, except such as comes from competent witnesses,
while it is not unfair to urge, on the other side, that
tradition, though unauthenticated, being (what is called)
in possession, has a prescription in its favour, and may,
The Range of the Illative Sense. 377
prima facie, or provisionally, be received. Here are
the materials of a fair dispute ; but there are writers
who seem to have gone far beyond this reasonable
scepticism, laying down as a general proposition that we
have no right in philosophy to make any assumption
whatever, and that we ought to begin with a universal
doubt. This, however, is of all assumptions the greatest,
and to forbid assumptions universally is to forbid this
one in particular. Doubt itself is a positive state, and
implies a definite habit of mind, and thereby necessarily
involves a system of principles and doctrines all its own.
Again, if nothing is to be assumed, what is our very
method of reasoning but an assumption ? and what our
nature itself? The very sense of pleasure and pain,
which is one of the most intimate portions of ourselves,
inevitably translates itself into intellectual assumptions.
Of the two, I would rather have to maintain that we
ought to begin with believing everything that is offered
to our acceptance, than that it is our duty to doubt of
everything. The former, indeed, seems the true way
of learning. In that case, we soon discover and discard
what is contradictory to itself; and error having always
some portion of truth in it, and the truth having-^ a
reality which error has not, we may expect, that when
there is an honest purpose and fair talents, we shall
somehow make our way forward, the error falling oflf
from the mind, and the truth developing and occupying
it. Thus it is that the Catholic religion is reached, as
we see, by inquirers from all points of the compass, as
if it mattered not where a man began, so that he had
an eye and a heart for the truth.
378 The Illative Sense.
(2) An argument has been often put forward by unbe-
lievers, I think by Paine, to this effect, that " a revelation,
which is to be received as true, ought to be written on
the sun." This appeals to the common-sense of the many
■with great force, and implies the assumption of a prin-
ciple which Butler, indeed, would not grant, and would
consider unphilosophical, and yet I think something may
be said in its favour. Whether abstractedly defensible
or not. Catholic populations would not be averse, mutatis
mutandis, to admitting it. Till these last centuries, the
Visible Church was, at least to her children, the light of
the world, as conspicuous as the sun in the heavens ; and
the Creed was written on her forehead, and proclaimed
through her voice, by a teaching as precise as it was
emphatical ; in accordance with the text, " Who is she
that looketh forth at the dawn, fair as the moon, bright
as the sun, terrible as an army set in array ? " It was
not, strictly speaking, a miracle, doubtless ; but in its
effect, nay, in its circumstances, it was little less. Of
course I would not allow that the Church fails in this
manifestation of the truth now, any more than in former
times, though the clouds have come over the sun ; for
what she has lost in her appeal to the imagination, she
has gained in philosophical cogency, by the evidence of
her persistent vitality. So far is clear, that if Paine's
aphorism has a prima fade force against Christianity,
it owes this advantage to the miserable deeds of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
(3) Another conflict of first principles or assumptions,
which have often been implicit on either side, has been
carried through in our day, and relates to the end and
The Range of the Illative Sense. 3 79
scope of civil society, that is, whether government and
legislation ought to be of a religious character, or not;
whether the state has a conscience; whether Chris-
tianity is the law of the land ; whether the magistrate,
in punishing oflfenders, exercises a retributive office or
a corrective ; or whether the whole structure of society
is raised upon the basis of secular expediency. The re-
lation of philosophy and the sciences to theology comes
into the question. The old time-honoured theory has,
during the last forty years, been vigorously contending
with the new ; and the new is in the ascendant.
(4) There is another great conflict of first principles,
and that among Christians, which has occupied a large
space in our domestic history, during the last thirty or
forty years, and that is the controversy about the Eule
of Faith. I notice it as affording an instance of an
assumption so deeply sunk into the popular mind, that
it is a work of great difficulty to obtain from its main-
tainors an acknowledgment that it is an assumption.
That Scripture is the Rule of Faith is in fact an assump-
tion so congenial to the state of mind and course of
thought usual among Protestants, that it seems to them
rather a truism than a truth. If they are in controversy
with Catholics on any point of faith, they at once ask,
''Where do you find it in Scripture ? " and if Catholics
reply, as they must do, that it is not necessarily in
Scripture in order to be true, nothing can persuade them
that such an answer is not an evasion, and a triumph to
themselves. Yet it is by no means self-evident that all
religious truth is to be found in a number of works,
however sacred, which were written at different times.
o
80 T/ie Illative Sense.
and did not always form one book ; and in fact it is a
doctrine very hard to prove. So much so, that years
ago, when I was considering it from a Protestant point
of view, and wished to defend it to the best of my power,
I was unable to give any better account of it than the
following, which I here quote from its appositeness to
my present subject.
" It matters not," I said, speaking of the first Pro-
testants, '' whether or not they only happened to come
right on what, in a logical point of view, are faulty
premisses. They had no time for theories of any kind ;
and to require theories at their hand argues an ignorance
of human nature, and of the ways in which truth is
struck out in the course of life. Common sense, chance,
moral perception, genius, the great discoverers of prin-
ciples do not reason. They have no arguments, no
grounds, they see the truth, but they do not know how
they see it ; and if at any time they attempt to prove
it, it is as much a matter of experiment with them, as
if they had to find a road to a distant mountain, which
they see with the eye; and they get entangled, embar-
rassed, and perchance overthrown in the superfluous
endeavour. It is the second-rate men, though most
useful in their place, who prove, reconcile, finish, and
explain. Probably, the popular feeling of the sixteenth
centuiy saw the Bible to be the Word of God, so as
nothing else is His Word, by the power of a strong
sense, by a sort of moral instinct, or by a happy
augury."'
That is, I considered the assumption an act of the
» « Prophetical Office of the Church," pp. 347, 346, ed. 1837.
The Range of the Illative Sense. 381
Illative Sense ; — I should now add, the Illative Sense,
acting on mistaken elements of thought.
3. After the aspects in which a question is to be
viewed, and the principles on which it is to be con-
sidered, come the arguments by which it is decided ;
among these are antecedent reasons, which are especially
in point here, because they are in great measure made
by ourselves and belong to our personal character, and
to them I shall confine myself.
Antecedent reasoning, when negative, is safe. Thus
no one would say that, because Alexander's rash heroism
is one of the leading characteristics of his history,
therefore we are justified, except in writing a romance,
in asserting that at a particular time and place, he
distinguished himself by a certain exploit about which
history is altogether silent ; but, on the other hand, his
notorious bravery would be almost decisive against any
charge against him of having on a particular occasion
acted as a coward.
In like manner, good character goes far in destroying
the force of even plausible charges. There is indeed a
degree of evidence in support of an allegation, against
which reputation is no defence ; but it must be singu-
larly strong to overcome an established antecedent
probability which stands opposed to it. Thus historical
personages or great authors, men of high and pure
character, have had imputations cast upon them, easy to
make, difiicult or impossible to meet, which are indig-
nantly trodden under foot by all just and sensible men,
as being as anti-social as they are inhuman. I need not
add what a cruel and despicable part a husband or a son
382 The Illative Sense,
would play, who readily listened to a charge against his
wife or his father. Yet all this being admitted, a great
number of cases remain which are perplexing, and on
which we cannot adjust the claims of conflicting and
heterogeneous arguments except by the keen and
subtle operation of the Illative Sense.
Butler^s argument in his Analogy is such a presump-
tion used negatively. Objection being brought against
certain characteristics of Christianity, he meets it by
the presumption in their favour derived from their
parallels as discoverable in the order of nature, arguing
that they do not tell against the Divine origin of Chris-
tianity, unless they tell against the Divine origin of the
natural system also. But he could not adduce it as a
positive and direct proof of the Divine origin of the
Christian doctrines that they had their parallels in
nature, or at the utmost as more than a recommenda-
tion of them to the religious inquirer.
Unbelievers use the antecedent argument from the
order of nature against our belief in miracles. Here,
if they only mean that the fact of that system of laws,
by which physical nature is governed, makes it antece-
dently improbable that an exception should occur in it,
there is no objection to the argument ; but if, as is not
uncommon, they mean that the fact of an established
order is absolutely fatal to the very notion of an excep-
tion, they are using a presumption as if it were a proof.
They are saying, — What has happened 999 times one
way cannot possibly happen on the 1000th time another
way, because what has happened 999 times one way is
likely to happen in the same way on the 1000th. But
unlikely things do happen sometimes. If, however.
The Range of the Illative Sense. 383
they mean that the existing order of nature constitutes
a physical necessity, and that a law is an unalterable fate,
this is to assume the very point in debate, and is much
more than asserting its antecedent probability.
Facts cannot be proved by presumptions, yet it is
remarkable that in cases where nothing stronger than
presumption was even professed, scientific men have
sometimes acted as if they thought this kind of argu-
ment, taken by itself, decisive of a fact which was in
debate. Thus in the controversy about the Plurality
of worlds, it has been considered, on purely antecedent
grounds, as far as I see, to be so necessary that the
Creator should have filled with living beings the lumi-
naries which we see in the sky, and the other cosmical
bodies which we imagine there, that it almost amounts
to a blasphemy to doubt it.
Theological conclusions, it is true, have often been
made on antecedent reasoning j but then it must be
recollected that theological reasoning professes to be
sustained by a more than human power, and to be gua-
ranteed by a more than human authority. It may be
true, also, that conversions to Christianity have often
been made on antecedent reasons ; yet, even admitting
the fact, which is not quite clear, a number of antece-
dent probabilities, confirming each other, may make it
a duty in the judgment of a prudent man, not only to act
as if a statement were true, but actually to accept and
believe it. This is not unfrequently instanced in our
dealings with others, when we feel it right, in spite of
our misgivings, to oblige ourselves to believe their
honesty. And in all these delicate questions there is
constant call for the exercise of the Illative Sense.
CHAPTER X.
IKFEEENCE AND ASSENT IN THE MATTER OF
EELTGION.
And now I have completed my review of the second
subject to which I have given my attention in this
Essay, the connexion existing between the intellectual
acts of Assent and Inference, my first being the con-
nexion of Assent with Apprehension ; and as I closed
my remarks upon Assent and Apprehension by applying
the conclusions at which 1 had arrived to our belief in
the Truths of Religion, so now I ought to speak of its
Evidences, before quitting the consideration of the de-
pendence of Assent upon Inference. I shall attempt to
do so in this Chapter, not without much anxiety, lest I
should injure so large, momentous, and sacred a subject
by a necessarily cursory treatment.
I begin with expressing a sentiment, which is habi-
tually in my thoughts, whenever they are turned to the
subject of mental or moral science, and which I am as
■willing to apply here to the Evidences of Religion as it
properly applies to Metaphysics or Ethics, viz. that in
these provinces of inquiry egotism is true modesty. In
Inference and Assent in Religion. 385
religious inquiry each of us can speak only for himself,
and for himself he has a right to speak. His own.
experiences are enough for himself, but he cannot
speak for others : he cannot lay down the law ; he can
only bring his own experiences to the common stock
of psychological facts. He knows what has satisfied
and satisfies himself; if it satisfies him, it is likely to
satisfy others ; if, as he believes and is sure, it is true,
it will approve itself to others also, for there is but
one truth. And doubtless he does find in fact, that,
allowing for the difference of minds and of modes of
speech, what convinces him, does convince others also.
There will be very many exceptions, but these will
admit of explanation. Great numbers of men refuse
to inquire at all; they put the subject of religion
aside altogether; others are not serious enough to
care about questions of truth and duty and to entertain
them ; and to numbers, from their temper of mind, or
the absence of doubt, or a dormant intellect, it does not
occur to inquire why or what they believe; many,
though they tried, would not be able to do so in any
satisfactory way. This being the case, it causes no un-
easiness to any one who honestly attempts to set down
his own view of the Evidences of Religion, that at
first sight he seems to be but one among many who
are all in opposition to each other. But, however that
may be, he brings together his reasons, and relies on
them, because they are his own, and this is his primary
evidence ; and he has a second ground of evidence, in
the testimony of those who agree with him. But his
best evidence is the former, which is derived from his
c c
386 hiferetice aiid Assent in Religion.
own thoughts ; and it is that which the world has a
right to demand of him; and therefore his true
sobriety and modesty consists, not in claiming for his
conclusions an acceptance or a scientific approval
which is not to be found anywhere, but in stating
what are personally his own grounds for his belief in
Natural and Eevealed Religion, — grounds which he
holds to be so sufficient, that he thinks that others do
hold them implicitly or in substance, or would hold
them, if they inquired fairly, or will hold if they listen
to him, or do not hold from impediments, invincible or
not as it may be, into which he has no call to inquire.
However, his own business is to speak for himself- He
uses the words of the Samaritans to their country-
woman, when our Lord had remained with them for
two days, " Now we believe, not for thy saying, for we
have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is in-
deed the Saviour of the world."
In these words it is declared both that the Gospel
Revelation is divine, and that it carries with it the
evidence of its divinity; and this is of course the
matter of fact. However, these two attributes need
not have been united ; a revelation might have been
really given, yet given without credentials. Our
supreme Master might have imparted to us truths
which nature cannot teach us, without telling us that
He had imparted them, — as is actually the case now as
regards heathen countries, into which portions of re-
vealed truth overflow and penetrate, without their
populations knowing whence those truths came. But
the very idea of Christianity in ita profession and
Inference and Assent in Religion. '^'i']
history, is something more than this ; it is a " Reve-
latio revelata;" it is a definite message from God to
man distinctly conveyed by His chosen instruments,
and to be received as such a message ; and therefore
to be positively acknowledged, embraced, and main-
tained as true, on the ground of its being divine, not
as true on intrinsic grounds, not as probably true, or
partially true, but as absolutely certain knowledge,
certain in a sense in which nothing else can be cei'tain,
because it comes from Him who neither can deceive
nor be deceived.
And the whole tenor of Scripture from beginning
to end is to this effect : the matter of revelation is not
a mere collection of truths, not a philosophical view,
not a religious sentiment or spirit, not a special
morality, — poured out upon mankind as a stream
might pour itself into the sea, mixing with the world's
thought, modifying, purifying, invigorating it ; — but
an authoritative teaching, which bears witness to itself
and keeps itself together as one, in contrast to the
assemblage of opinions on all sides of it, and speaks
to all men, as being ever and everywhere one and the
same, and claiming to be received intelligently, by
all whom it addresses, as one doctrine, discipline, and
devotion directly given from above. In consequence,
the exhibition of credentials, that is, of evidence, that
it is what it professes to be, is essential to Christianity,
as it comes to us ; for we are not left at liberty to pick
and choose out of its contents according to our judg-
ment, but must receive it all, as we find it, if we
accept it at all. It is a religion in addition to the
cc 2
388 Inference and Assent in Religion.
religion of nature ; and as nature has an intrinsic
claim upon us to be obeyed and used, so what is over
and above nature, or supernatural, must also bring with
it valid testimonials of its right to demand our homage.
Next, as to its relation to nature. As I have said,
Christianity is simply an addition to it ; it does not
supersede or contradict it ; it recognizes and depends
on it, and that of necessity : for how possibly can it
prove its claims except by an appeal to what men
have already ? be it ever so miraculous, it cannot dis-
pense with nature ; this would be to cut the ground
from under it ; for what would be the worth of evi-
dences in favour of a revelation which denied the
authority of that system of thought, and those courses
of reasoning, out of which those evidences necessarily
grew?
And in agreement with this obvious conclusion we
find in Scripture our Lord and His Apostles always
treating Christianity as the completion and supplement
of Natural Religion, and of previous revelations; as
when He says that the Father testified of Him j that
not to know Him was not to know the Father ; and
as St. Paul at Athens appeals to the " Unknown
God," and says that " He that made the world "
*' now declareth to all men to do penance, because He
hath appointed a day to judge the world by the man
whom He hath appointed." As then our Lord and His
Apostles appeal to the God of nature, we must follow
them in that appeal ; and, to do this with the better
effect, we must first inquire into the chief doctrines
and the grounds of Natural Religion.
Natural Religion. 389
§ 1. Natural Religion.
By Eeligion I mean the knowledge of God, of His
Will, and of our duties towards Him ; and there are
three main channels which Nature furnishes for our
acquiring this knowledge, viz. our own minds, the
voice of mankind, and the course of the world, that is, of
human hfe and human affairs. The informations which
these three convey to us teach us the Being and Attri-
butes of God, our responsibility to Him, our dependence
on Him, our prospect of reward or punishment, to be
somehow brought about, according as we obey or dis-
obey Him. And the most authoritative of these three
means of knowledge, as being specially our own, is
our own mind, whose informations give us the rule
by which we test, interpret, and correct what is pre-
sented to us for belief, whether by the universal testi-
mony of mankind, or by the history of society and of
the world.
Our great internal teacher of religion is, as I have
said in an earlier part of this Essay, our Conscience.*
Conscience is a personal guide, and I use it because
I must use myself; I am as little able to think by
* Supra, p. 105, &c. Vide also Univ. Serm. ii. 7 — 13.
390 Inference and Assent in Religion.
any mind but my own as to breathe with another's
lungs. Conscience is nearer to me than any other
means of knowledge. And as it is given to me, so
also is it given to others; and being carried about
by every individual in his own breast, and requiring
nothing besides itself, it is thus adapted for the com-
munication to each separately of that knowledge which
is most momentous to him individually, — adapted for
the use of all classes and conditions of men, for high
and low, young and old, men and women, independently
of books, of educated reasoning, of physical knowledge,
or of philosophy. Conscience, too, teaches us, not only
that God is, but what He is ; it provides for the mind a
real image of Him, as a medium of worship ; it gives us
a rule of right and wrong, as being His rule, and a code
C£ moral duties. Moreover, it is so constituted that, if
obeyed, it becomes clearer in its injunctions, and wider
in their range, and corrects and completes the accidental
feebleness of its initial teachings. Conscience, then,
considered as our guide, is fully furnished for its office.
I say all this without entering into the question how
far external assistances are in all cases necessary to
the action of the mind, because in fact man does not
live in isolation, but is everywhere found as a member
of society; I am not concerned here with abstract
questions.
Now Conscience suggests to us many things about that
Master, whom by means of it we perceive, but its most
prominent teaching, and its cardinal and distinguishing
truth, is that He is our Judge. In consequence, the
special Attribute under which it brings Him before us.
Natural Religion. 39 1
to whicli it subordinates all other Attributes,, is that of
justice— retributive justice. We learn from its informa-
tions to conceive of the Almighty, primarily, not as a
God of Wisdom, of Knowledge, of Power, of Benevolence,
but as a God of Judgment and Justice ; as One, who, not
simply for the good of the offender, but as an end good
in itself, and as a principle of government, ordains that
the offender should suffer for his offence. If it tells us
anything at all of the characteristics of the Divine
Mind, it certainly tells us this ; and, considering that
our shortcomings are far more frequent and important
than our fulfilment of the duties enjoined upon us, and
that of this point we are fully aware ourselves, it follows
that the aspect under which Almighty God is presented
to us by Nature, is (to use a figure) of One who is
angry with us, and threatens evil. Hence its effect is to
burden and sadden the religious mind, and is in contrast
with the enjoyment derivable from the exercise of the
affections, and from the perception of beauty, whether in
the material universe or in the creations of the intellect.
This is that fearful antagonism brought out with such
soul-piercing reality by Lucretius, when he speaks so
dishonourably of what he considers the heavy yoke of
religion, and the " aeternas poenas in morte timendum ;"
and, on the other hand, rejoices in his " Alma Venus,"
" quae rerum naturam sola gubernas." And we may appeal
to him for the fact, while we repudiate his view of it.
Such being the prima facie aspect of religion which
the teachings of Conscience bring befoi'e us individually,
in the next place let us consider what are the doctrines,
and what the influences of religion, as we find it embodied
392 Infei'ence and Assent in Religion.
in those various rites and devotions which have taken root
in the many races of mankind, since the beginning of
history, and before history, all over the earth. Of these
also Lucretius gives us a specimen ; and they accord in
form and complexion with that doctrine about duty and
responsibility, which he so bitterly hates and loathes.
It is scarcely necessary to insist, that wherever Religion
exists in a popular shape, it has almost invariably worn
its dark side outwards. It is founded in one way or
other on the sense of sin ; and without that vivid sense
it would hardly have any precepts or any observances.
Its many varieties all proclaim or imply that man is in
a degraded, servile condition, and requires expiation,
reconciliation, and some great change of nature. This
is suggested to us in the many ways in which we are
told of a realm of light and a realm of darkness, of an
elect fold and a regenerate state. It is suggested in the
almost ubiquitous and ever-recurring institution of a
Priesthood ; for wherever there is a priest, there is the
notion of sin, pollution, and retribution, as, on the
other hand, of intercession and mediation. Also, still
more directly, is the notion of our guilt impressed upon
us by the doctrine of future punishment, and that
eternal, which is found in mythologies and creeds of such
various parentage.
Of these distinct rites and doctrines embodying the
severe side of Natural Religion, the most remarkable is
that of atonement, that is, " a substitution of something
offered, or some personal suffering, for a penalty which
would otherwise be exacted \'' most remarkable, I say,
both from its close connexion with the notion of
Natural Religion. 393
vicarious satisfaction, and, on the other hand, from its
universality. '' The practice of atonement,^' says the
author, whose definition of the word I have just given,
" is remarkable for its antiquity and universality, proved
by the earliest records that have come down to us of all
nations, and by the testimony of ancient and modern
travellers. In the oldest books of the Hebrew Scriptures,
we have numerous instances of expiatory rites, where
atonement is the prominent feature. At the earliest
date, to which we can carry our inquiries by means of
the heathen records, we meet with the same notion of
atonement. If we pursue our inquiries through the
accounts left us by the Greek and Roman writers of the
barbarous nations with which they were acquainted,
from India to Britain, we shall find the same notions
and similar practices of atonement. From the most
popular portion of our own literature, our narratives of
voyages and travels, every one, probably, who reads at
all will be able to find for himself abundant proof that
the notion has been as permanent as it is universal.
It shows itself among the various tribes of Africa, the
islanders of the South Seas, and even that most peculiar
race, the natives of Australia, either in the shape of
some ofiering, or some mutilation of the person.''^
These ceremonial acknowledgments, in so may dis-
tinct forms of worship, of the existing degradation of
the human race, of course imply a brighter, as well as a
threatening aspect of Natural Religion ; for why should
men adopt any rites of deprecation or of purification at
all, unless they had some hope of attaining to a better
* Penny Cyclopcedia, art. "Atonemeat" (abridged).
394 Inference and Assent in Religion.
condition than their present ? Of this happier side of
religion I will speak presently ; here, however, a question
of another kind occurs, viz. whether the notion of
atonement can be admitted among the doctrines of
Natural Religion, — I mean, on the ground that it is
inconsistent with those teachings of Conscience, which I
have recognized above, as the rule and corrective of
every other information on the subject. If there is any
truth brought home to us by conscience, it is this, that
we are personally responsible for what we do, that we
have no means of shifting our responsibility, and that
dereliction of duty involves punishment; how, it may be
asked, can acts of ours of any kind — how can even
amendment of life — undo the past ? And if even our
own subsequent acts of obedeince bring with them no
promise of reversing what has once been committed,
how can external rites, or the actions of another (as of a
priest), be substitutes for that punishment which is the
connatural fruit and intrinsic development of violation
of the sense of duty ? I think this objection avails as
far as this, that amendment is no reparation, and that
no ceremonies or penances can in themselves exercise
any vicarious virtue in our behalf; and that, if they
avail, they only avail in the intermediate season of
probation ; that in some way we must make them our
own ; and that, when the time comes, which conscience
forebodes, of our being called to judgment, then, at
least, we shall have to stand in and by ourselves, what-
ever we shall have by that time become, and must bear
oilr own burden. But it is plain that in this final
account, as it lies between us and our Master, He alone
Natural Religion. 395
can decide how the past and the present will stand
together who is our Creator and our Judge.
In thus making it a necessary point to adjust the
religions of the world with the intimations of our con-
science, I am suggesting the reason why I confine
myself to such religions as have had their rise in
barbarous times, and do not recognize the religion of
what is called civilization, as having legitimately a part
in the delineation of Natural Religion. It may at first
sight seem strange, that, considering I have laid such
stress upon the progressive nature of man, I should take
my ideas of his religion from his initial, and not his
final testimony about its doctrines ; audit may be urged
that the religion of civilized times is quite opposite in
character to the rites and traditions of barbarians, and
has nothing of that gloom and sternness, on which I
have insisted as their characteristic. Thus the Greek
Mythology was for the most part cheerful and graceful,
and its new gods certamly more genial and indulgent
than the old ones. And, in like manner, the religion
of philosophy is more noble and more humane than those
primitive conceptions which were sufficient for early
kings and warriors. But my answer to this objection is
obvious : the progress of which man's nature is capable
is a development, not a destruction of its original state ;
it must subserve the elements from which it proceeds, in
order to be a true development and not a perversion.'
And those popular rituals do in fact subserve and
' On these various subjects I have written in " University Sermons "
(Oxford), No. vi. "Idea of the University," Disc. viii. "History of
Turks," ch. iv. " Development of Doctrine," cb. i. sect. 3.
396 Inference and Assent in Religion.
complete that nature with which man is born. It is
otherwise with the religion of so-called civilization ;
such religion does but contradict the religion of bar-
barism; and since this civilization itself is not a de-
velopment of man's whole nature, but mainly of the
intellect^ recognizing indeed the moral sense, but
ignoring the conscience, no wonder that the religion in
which it issues has no sympathy either with the hopes
and fears of the awakened soul, or with those frightful
presentiments which are expressed in the worship and
traditions of the heathen. This artificial religion, then,
has no place in the inquiry ; first, because it comes of
a one-sided progress of mind, and next, for the very
reason that it contradicts informants which speak with
greater authority than itself.
Now we come to the third natural informant on the
subject of Religion; I mean the system and the course
of the world. This established order of things, in which
we find ourselves, if it has a Creator, must surely speak
of His will in its broad outlines and its main issues. This
principle being laid down as certain, when we come to
apply it to things as they are, our first feeling is one of
surprise and (I may say) of dismay, that His control of
this living world is so indirect, and His action so obscure.
This is the first lesson that we gain from the course of
human affairs. What strikes the mind so forcibly and
BO painfully is, His absence (if I may so speak) from
His own world.'' It is a silence that speaks. It is as
if others had got possession of His work. Why does
not He, our Maker and Ruler, give us some imme-
* Tide "Apologia," p. 241.
Nahiral Religion. 397
diate knowledge of Himself? Why does He not write
His Moral Nature in large letters upon the face of his-
tory, and bring the blind, tumultuous rush of its events
into a celestial, hierarchical order ? Why does He not
grant us in the structure of society at least so much of
a revelation of Himself as the religions of the heathen
attempt to supply ? Why from the beginning of time
has no one uniform steady light guided all families of
the earth, and all individual men, how to please Him ?
Why is it possible without absurdity to deny His will.
His attributes. His existence ? Why does He not walk
with us one by one, as He is said to have walked with
His chosen men of old time ? We both see and know
each other ; why, if we cannot have the sight of Him,
have we not at least the knowledge ? On the contrary.
He is specially "a Hidden God;'^ and with our best
efforts we can only glean from the surface of the world
some faint and fragmentary views of Him. I see only
a choice of alternatives in explanation of so critical a
fact : — either there is no Creator, or He has disowned
His creatures. Are then the dim shadows of His
Presence in the affairs of men but a fancy of our own,
or, on the other hand, has He hid His face and the
light of His countenance, because we have in some
special way dishonoured Him ? My true informant, my
burdened conscience, gives me at once the true answer
to each of these antagonist questions : — it pronounces
without any misgiving that God exists : — and it pro-
nounces quite as surely that I am alienated from Him ;
that " His hand is not shortened, but that our iniquities
have divided between us and our God/' Thus it solves
398 Inference and Assent in Religion.
the world's mystery, and sees in that mystery only a
confirmation of its own original teaching.
Let us pass on to another great fact of experience,
bearing on Religion, which confirms this testimony both
of conscience and of the forms of worship which pre-
vail among mankind ; — I mean, the amount of sufier-
ing, bodily and mental, which is our portion in this life.
Not only is the Creator far off, but some being of malig-
nant nature seems, as I have said, to have got hold of
us, and to be making us his sport. Let us say there
are a thousand millions of men on the earth at this
time ; who can weigh and measure the aggregate of
pain which this one generation has endured and will
endure from birth to death ? Then add to this all the
pain which has fallen and will fall upon our race through
centuries past and to come. Is there not then some
great gulf fixed between us and the good God ? Here
again the testimony of the system of nature is more
than corroborated by those popular traditions about the
unseen state, which are found in mythologies and
superstitions, ancient and modern ; for those traditions
speak, not only of present misery, but of pain and evil
hereafter, and even without end. But this dreadful
addition is not necessary for the conclusion which I am
here wishing to draw. The real mystery is, not that
evil should never have an end, but that it should ever
have had a beginning. Even a universal restitution
could not undo what had been, or account for evil
being the necessary condition of good. How are we
to explain it, the existence of God being taken for
granted, except by saying that another will, besides
Natural Religion. 399
His, has had a part in the disposition of His work, that
there is a quarrel without remedy, a chronic alienation,
between God and man ?
I have imphed that the laws on which this world is
governed do not go so far as to prove that evil will
never die out of the creation ; nevertheless, they look
in that direction. No experience indeed of life can
assure us about the future, but it can and does give us
means of conjecturing what is likely to be ; and those
conjectures coincide with our natural forebodings.
Experience enables us to ascertain the moral constitu-
tion of man, and thereby to presage his future from
his present. It teaches us, first, that he is not suffi-
cient for his own happiness, but is dependent upon the
sensible objects which surround him, and that these
he cannot take with him when he leaves the world ;
secondly, that disobedience to his sense of right is even
by itself misery, and that he carries that misery about
him, wherever he is, though no divine retribution fol-
lowed upon it ; and thirdly, that he cannot change his
nature and his habits by wishing, but is simply himself,
and will ever be himself and what he now is, wherever
he is, as long as he continues to be, — or at least that
pain has no natural tendency to make him other than he
is, and that the longer he lives, the more difficult he is to
change. How can we meet these not irrational antici-
pations, except by shutting our eyes, turning away from
them, and saying that we have no call, no right, to think
of them at present, or to make ourselves miserable
about what is not certain, and may be not true ? '
« Fide " Callista," ch. six.
400 Inference and Assent in Religion.
Such is the severe aspect of Natural Religion : also
it is the most prominent aspect, because the multitude
of men follow their own likings and wills, and not the
decisions of their sense of right and wrong. To them
Religion is a mere yoke, as Lucretius describes it; not
a satisfaction or refuge, but a terror and a superstition.
However, I must not for an instant be supposed to
mean, that this is its only, its chief, or its legitimate
aspect. All Religion, so far as it is genuine, is a
blessing, Natural as well as Revealed. I have insisted
on its severe aspect in the first place, because, from
the circumstances of human nature, though not by the
fault of Religion, such is the shape in which we first
encounter it. Its large and deep foundation is the
sense of sin and guilt, and without this sense there is
for man, as he is, no genuine religion. Otherwise, it
is but counterfeit and hollow; and that is the reason
why this so-called religion of civilization and philoso-
phy is so great a mockery. However, true as this judg-
ment is which I pass on philosophical religion, and
troubled as are the existing relations between God and
man, as both the voice of mankind and the facts of
Divine Government testify, equally true are other
general laws which govern those relations, and they
speak another language, and compensate for what is
stem in the teaching of nature, without tending to
deny that sternness.
The first of these laws, relieving the aspect of Natural
Religion, is the very fact that religious beliefs and in-
stitutions, of some kind or other, are of such general
acceptance in all times and places. Why should men
Natural Religion. 401
subject themselves to the tyranny which Lucretius de-
nounces, unless they had either experience or hope of
benefits to themselves by so doing ? Though it be mere
hope of benefits, that alone is a great alleviation of the
gloom and misery which their religious rites presup-
pose or occasion ; for thereby they have a prospect,
more or less clear, of some happier state in reserve for
them, or at least the chances of it. If they simply
despaired of their fortunes, they would not care about
religion. And hope of future good, as we know,
sweetens all suffering.
Moreover, they have an earnest of that future in the
real and recurring blessings of life, the enjoyment of
the gifts of the earth, and of domestic affection and
social intercourse, which is sufficient to touch and to
subdue even the most guilty of men in his better
moments, reminding him that he is not utterly cast off
by Him whom nevertheless he is not given to know.
Or, in the Apostle's words, though the Creator once.
" suffered all nations to walk in their own ways,'' still,
" He left not Himself without testimony, doing good
from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling
our hearts with food and gladness."
Nor are these blessings of physical nature the only
tokens in the Divine System, which in that heathen
time, and indeed in every age, bring home to our ex-
perience the fact of a Good God, in spite of the tumult
and confusion of the world. It is possible to give an
interpretation to the course of things, by which every
event or occurrence in its order becomes providential :
and though that interpretation does not hold good un-
Dd
402 Inference afid Asse^ti m Religion.
less the world is contemplated from a particular point
of view, in one given aspect, and with certain inward
experiences, and personal first principles and judg-
ments, yet these may be fairly pronounced to be com-
mon conditions of human thought, that is, till they are
wilfully or accidentally lost ; and they issue in fact, in
leading the great majority of men to recognize the
Hand of unseen power, directing in mercy or in judg-
ment the physical and moral system. In the pro-
minent events of the world, past and contemporary,
the fate, evil or happy, of great men, the rise and fall
of states, popular revolutions, decisive battles, the
migration of races, the replenishing of the earth, earth-
quakes and pestilences, critical discoveries and inven-
tions, the history of philosophy, the advancement of
knowledge, in these the spontaneous piety of the
human mind discerns a Divine Supervision. Nay,
there is a general feeling, originating directly in the
workings of conscience, that a similar governance is
extended over the persons of individuals, who thereby
both fulfil the purposes and receive the just recom-
penses of an Omnipotent Providence. Good to the
good, and evil to the evil, is instinctively felt to be,
even from what we see, amid whatever obscurity and
confusion, the universal rule of God^s dealings with us.
Hence come the great proverbs, indigenous in both
Christian and heathen nations, that punishment is
sure, though slow, that murder will out, that treason
never prospers, that pride will have a fall, that honesty
is the best policy, and that curses fall on the heads of
those who utter them. To the unsophisticated appre-
Natwal Religion. 403
hension of the many, the successive passages of life,
social or political, are so many miracles, if that is to
be accounted miraculous which brings before them the
immediate Divine Presence ; and should it be objected
that this is an illogical exercise of reason, I answer,
that since it actually brings them to a right conclusion,
and was intended to bring them to it, if logic finds
fault with it, so much the worse for logic.
Again, prayer is essential to religion, and, where
prayer is, there is a natural relief and solace in all
trouble, great or ordinary : now prayer is not less
general in mankind at large than is faith in Provi-
dence. It has ever been in use, both as a personal and
as a social practice. Here again, if, in order to deter-
mine what the Religion of Nature is, we may justly
have recourse to the spontaneous acts and proceedings
of our race, as viewed on a large field, we may safely
say that prayer, as well as hope, is a constituent of
man's religion. Nor is it a fair objection to this
argument, to say that such prayers and rites as have
obtained in various places and times, are in their cha-
racter, object, and scope inconsistent with each other;
because their contrarieties do not come into the idea of
religion, as such, at all, and the very fact of their dis-
cordance destroys their right to be taken into account,
so far as they are discordant ; for what is not universal
has no claim to be considered natural, right, or of
divine origin. Thus we may determine prayer to be
part of Natural Religion, from such instances of the
usage as are supplied by the priests of Baal and by
dancing Dervishes, without therefore including in our
Dd 2
404 Infere^ice and Assent in Religion.
notions of prayer the frantic excesses of the one, or
the artistic spinning of the other, or sanctioning their
respective objects of belief, Baal or Mahomet.
As prayer is the voice of man to God, so Revelation
is the voice of God to man. Accordingly, it is another
alleviation of the darkness and distress which weigh
upon the religions of the world, that in one way or
other such religions are founded on some idea of ex-
press revelation, coming from the unseen agents whose
anger they deprecate; nay, that the very rites and
observances, by which they hope to gain the favour of
these beings, are by these beings themselves commu-
nicated and appointed. The Religion of Nature has not
been a deduction of reason, or the joint, voluntary mani-
festo of a multitude meeting together and pledging
themselves to each other, as men move resolutions
now for some political or social purpose, but it has been
a tradition or an interposition vouchsafed to a people
from above. To such an interposition men even as-
cribed their civil polity or citizenship, which did not
originate in any plebiscite, but in dii minores or heroes,
and was inaugurated with portents or palladia, and pro-
tected and prospered by oracles and auguries. Here is
an evidence, too, how congenial the notion of a revelation
is to the human mind, so that the expectation of it may
truly be considered an integral part of Natural Religion.
Among the observances imposed by these professed
revelations, none is more remarkable, or more general,
than the rite of sacrifice, in which guilt was removed or
blessing gained by an offering, which availed instead of
the n>erits of the offerer. This, too, as well as the notion
Natural Religion. 405
of divine interpositions, may be considered almost an in-
tegral part of the Eeligion of Nature, and an alleviation
of its gloom. But it does not stand by itself; I have al-
ready spoken of the doctrine of atonement, under which it
falls, and which, if what is universal is natural, enters
into the idea of religious service. And what the nature
of man suggests, the providential system of the world
sanctions by enforcing. It is the law, or the permission,
given to our whole race, to use the Apostle's words,
to " bear one another's bnrdens ;" and this, as I said
when on the subject of Atonement, is quite consistent
with his antithesis that " every one must bear his own
burden." The final burden of responsibility when we
are called to judgment is our own; but among the
media by which we are prepared for that judgment are
the exertions and pains taken in our behalf by others.
On this vicarious principle, by which we appropriate to
ourselves what others do for us, the whole structure of
society is raised. Parents work and endure pain, that
their children may prosper ; children suffer for the sin
of their parents, who have died before it bore fruit.
''Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.'' Sometimes it is a
compulsory, sometimes a willing mediation. The punish-
ment which is earned by the husband falls upon the wife ;
the benefits in which all classes partake are wrought out
by the unhealthy or dangerous toil of the few. Soldiers
endure wounds and death for those who sit at home ;
and ministers of state fall victims to their zeal for their
countrymen, who do little else than criticize their actions.
And so in some measure or way this law embraces all of
us. We all suffer for each other, and gain by each other's
4o6 Inference and Assent in Religion.
sufferings ; for man never stands alone here, though he
will stand by himself one day hereafter ; but here he is
a social being, and goes forward to his long home as
one of a large company.
Butler, it need scarcely be said, is the great master of
this doctrine, as it is brought out in the system of nature.
In answer to the objection to the Christian doctrine of
satisfaction, that it "represents God as indifferent
whether He punishes the innocent or the guilty," he
observes that " the world is a constitution or system,
whose parts have a mutual reference to each other ; and
that there is a scheme of things gradually carrying on,
called the course of nature, to the carrying on of which
God has appointed us, in various ways, to contribute.
And in the daily course of natural providence, it is
appointed that innocent people should suffer for the
faults of the guilty. Finally, indeed and upon the
whole, every one shall receive according to his personal
deserts; but during the progress, and, for ought we
know, even in order to the completion of this moral
scheme, vicarious punishments may be fit, and absolutely
necessary. We see in what variety of ways one person's
sufferings contribute to the relief of another ; and being
familiarized to it, men are not shocked with it. So the
reason of their insisting on objections against the [doc-
trine of] satisfaction is, either that they do not consider
God's settled and uniform appointments as His appoint-
ments at all ; or else they forget that vicarious punish-
ment is a providential appointment of every day's expe-
rience."* I will but add, that, since all human suffering
• •• Analogy," Pt. ii. ch. B (abridged).
Natural Religion. 40 7
is in its last resolution the punishment of sin, and punish-
ment implies a Judge and a rule of justice, he who
undergoes the punishment of another in his stead may
be said in a certain sense to satisfy the claims of justice
towards that other in his own person.
One concluding remark has to be made here. In all
sacrifices it was specially required that the thing offered
should be something rare, and unblemished ; and in like
manner in all atonements and all satisfactions, not only
was the innocent taken for the guilty, but it was a point
of special importance that the victim should be spotless,
and the more manifest that spotlessness, the more effica-
cious was the sacrifice. This leads me to a last principle
which I shall notice as proper to Natural Religion, and
as lightening the prophecies of evil in which it is
founded; I mean the doctrine of meritorious intercession.
The man in the Gospel did but speak for the human
race everywhere, when he said, *' God heareth not sin-
ners ; but if a man be a worshipper of God, and doth
His will, him He heareth.'' Hence every religion has
had its eminent devotees, exalted above the body of the
people, mortified men, brought nearer to the Source of
good by austerities, self-inflictions, and prayer, who have
influence with Him, and extend a shelter and gain bless-
ings for those who become their clients. A belief like
this has been, of course, attended by numberless super-
stitions; but those superstitions vary with times and
places, and the belief itself in the mediatorial power of
the good and holy has been one and the same every-
where. Nor is this belief an idea of past times only or of
heathen countries. It is one of the most natural visions of
4o8 Inference and Assent in Religion.
the young and innocent. And all of us, the more keenly
we feel our own distance from holy persons, the more are
we drawn near to them, as if forgetting that distance,
and proud of them because they are so unlike ourselves,
as being specimens of what our nature may be, and with
some vague hope that we, their relations by blood, may
profit in our own persons by their holiness.
Such, then, in outline is that system of natural beliefs
and sentiments, which, though true and divine, is still
possible to us independently of Revelation, and is the
preparation for it ; though in Christians themselves it
cannot really be separated from their Christianity, and
never is possessed in its higher forms in any people
without some portion of those inward aids which
Christianity imparts to us, and those endemic traditions
which have their first origin in a paradisiacal illumi-
nation.
Revealed Religion. 409
§ 2. Revealed Religion.
In determining, as above, the main features o£ Natural
Religion, and distinguishing it from the religion of
philosophy or civilization, I may be accused of having
taken a course of my own, for which I have no sufficient
warrant. Such an accusation does not give me much
concern. Every one who thinks on these subjects takes
a course of his own, though it will also happen to be the
course which others take besides himself. The minds
of many separately bear them forward in the same direc-
tion, and they are confirmed in it by each other. This
I consider to be my own case ; if I have mis-stated or
omitted notorious facts in my account of Natural Reli-
gion, if I have contradicted or disregarded anything
which He who speaks through my conscience has told
ns all directly from Heaven, then indeed I have acted
unjustifiably and have something to unsay ; but, if I
have done no more than view the notorious facts of the
case in the medium of my primary mental experiences,
under the aspects which they spontaneously present to
me, and with the aid of my best illative sense, I only
do on one side of the question what those who think
differently do on the other. As they start with one
410 I^iference and Assent in Religion.
set of first principles, I start with another. I gave
notice just now that I should offer my own witness
in the matter in question ; though of course it would not
be worth while my offering it, unless what I felt myself
agreed with what is felt by hundreds and thousands
besides me_, as I am sure it does, whatever be the measure,
more or less, of their explicit recognition of it.
In thus speaking of Natural Religion as in one sense
a matter of private judgment, and that with a view of
proceeding from it to the proof of Christianity, I seem to
give up the intention of demonstrating either. Cer-
tainly I do; not that I deny that demonstration is
possible. Truth certainly, as such, rests upon grounds
intrinsically and objectively and abstractedly demon-
strative, but it does not follow from this that the
arguments producible in its favour are unanswerable
and irresistible. These latter epithets are relative, and
bear upon matters of fact ; arguments in themselves
ought to do, what perhaps in the particular case they can-
not do. The fact of revelation is in itself demonstrably
true, but it is not therefore true irresistibly ; else, how
comes it to be resisted ? There is a vast distance between
what it is in itself, and what it is to us. Light is a
quality of matter, as truth is of Christianity ; but light
is not recognized by the blind, and there are those who
do not recognize truth, from the fault, not of truth, but
of themselves. I cannot convert men, when I ask for
assumptions which they refuse to grant to me; and
without assumptions no one can prove anything about
anything.
I am suspicious then of scientific demonstrations in a
Revealed Religion. 411
question of concrete fact, in a discussion between fallible
men. However, let those demonstrate who have the
gift ; " unusquisque in suo sensu abundet." For me, it
is more congenial to my own judgment to attempt to
prove Christianity in the same informal way in which I
can prove for certain that I have been born into this
world, and that I shall die out of it. It is pleasant to
my own feelings to follow a theological writer, such as
Amort, who has dedicated to the great Pope, Benedict
XIV., what he calls " a new, modest, and easy way of
demonstrating the Catholic Religion.'^ In this work
he adopts the argument merely of the greater proba-
bility ;^ I prefer to rely on that of an accumulation of
various probabilities ; but we both hold (that is, I hold
with him), that from probabilities we may construct
legitimate proof, sufficient for certitude. I follow him
in holding, that, since a Good Providence watches over
' " Scopus operis est, planiorem Protestantibus aperire viara ad veram
Ecclesiam. Cim enim hactenus Polemici nostri insudarint toti in
demonstrandis singulis Religionis Catholicse articulis, in id ego unum
incumbo, ut haec tria evincam. Primo : Articulos fundamentales, Reli-
gionis Catholicse esse evidenter credibiliores oppositis, &c. &c
Demonstratio autem hujus novse, modestse, ac facilis vise, qua ex articulis
fundamentalibus soliim probabilioribus adstruitur summa Religionis
certitudo, haec est : Deus, cum sit sapiens ac providus, tenetur, Reli-
gionem a se revelatam reddere evidenter credibiliorem religionibus falsis.
Imprudenter enim vellet, suam Religionem ab hominibus recipi, nisi
earn redderet evidenter credibiliorem religionibus caateris. Ergo ilia
religio, quae est evidenter credibilior cseteris, est ipsissima religio a Deo
rerelata, adeoque certissime vera, sen demonstrata. Atqui, &c. . . .
Motivum aggrediendi novam banc, modestam, ac facilem viam illud
prsecipuum est, qu6d observem, Protestantium plurimos post innumeros
concertationum fluctus, in iis tandem consedisse syi-tibus, ut credant,
nuUam dari religionem undequaque demonstratam, &c. . . . Ratiociniis
deuique oppoQunt ratiocinia; prsejudiciis prsejudicia ex majoribus
sua," &c.
412 Infe7^ence and Assent ui Religion.
us, He blesses such means of argument as it has pleased
Him to give us, in the nature of man and of the world,
if we use them duly for those ends for which He has
given them ; and that, as in mathematics we are justified
by the dictate of nature in withholding our assent from
a conclusion of which we have not yet a strict logical
demonstration, so by a like dictate we are not justified,
in the case of concrete reasoning and especially of
religious inquiry, in waiting till such logical demon-
stration is ours, but on the contrary are bound in con-
science to seek truth and to look for certainty by modes
of proof, which, when reduced to the shape of formal
propositions, fail to satisfy the severe requisitions of
science."
Here then at once is one momentous doctrine or prin-
ciple, which enters into my own reasoning, and which
another ignores, viz. the providence and intention of
God ; and of course there are other principles, explicit or
implicit, which are in like circumstances. It is not
wonderful then, that, while I can prove Christianity
' " Docet naturalis ratio, Deum, ex ipsa natura bonitatis ac providentise
suae, si velit in mundo habere religionem puram, enmque iiistituere ac
conservare usque in finem mundi, teneri ad earn religionem reddendam
evidenter credibiliorem ac verisimiliorem casteris, &c. &c Ex hoc
sequitur ultcrius ; certitudinem moraiem de verA Ecclesia elevari posse
ad certitudinem metapliysicam, si homo advertat, certitudinem moraiem
absolute fallibilem substare in materia religionis circa ejus constitutiva
fundamentalia speciali providentise divina;, prajservatrici ab ouini errore.
.... Itaque homo semel ex serie historica actorum perductus ad
moraiem certitudinem de auctore, fundatione, propagatione, et con-
tinuatione Ecclesiee Christianse, per refiexionem ad existentiam certissi.
mam providentiro divinae in materitl religionis, A, priori luraiue natursa
certitudine metaphysicd notam, eo ipso eadem infallibili ctrtitudine
intelliget, argumeuta dc auctore," &c. — Amort. Ethica Christiana,
p. 252.
Revealed Religion. 4 1 3
divine to my own satisfaction, I shall not be able to
force it upon any one else. Multitudes indeed I ought
to succeed in persuading of its truth without any force
at all, because they and I start from the same princi-
ples, and what is a proof to me is a proof to them ; but
if any one starts from any other principles but ours, I
have not the power to change his principles, or the con-
clusion which he draws from them, any more than I can
make a crooked man straight. Whether his mind will
ever grow straight, whether I can do anything towards
its becoming straight, whether he is not responsible,
responsible to his Maker, for being mentally crooked,
is another matter ; still the fact remains, that, in any
inquiry about things in the concrete, men differ from
each other, not so much in the soundness of their
reasoning as in the principles which govern its exercise,
that those principles are of a personal character, that
where there is no common measure of minds, there is
no common measure of arguments, and that the vali-
dity of proof is determined, not by any scientific test,
but by the illative sense.
Accordingly, instead of saying that the truths of
Revelation depend on those of Natural Religion, it is
more pertinent to say that belief in revealed truths
depends on belief in natural. Belief is a state of mind ;
belief generates belief; states of mind correspond to
each other; the habits of thought and the reasonings
which lead us on to a higher state of belief than our
present, are the very same which we already possess in
connexion with the lower state. Those Jews became
Christians in Apostolic times who were already what
414 Inference ajid Assent in Religion.
may be called crypto-Christians ; and those Christians
in this day remain Christian only in name, and (if it so
happen) at length fall away, who are nothing deeper
or better than men of the world, savants, literary men,
or politicians.
That a special preparation of mind is required for
each separate department of inquiry and discussion
(excepting, of course, that of abstract science) is
strongly insisted upon in well-known passages of
the Nicomachean Ethics. Speaking of the variations
which are found in the logical perfection of proof in
various subject-matters, Aristotle says, "A well-
educated man will expect exactness in every class of
subjects, according as the nature of the thing admits ;
for it is much the same mistake to put up with a
mathematician using probabilities, and to require
demonstration of an orator. Each man judges skil-
fully in those things about which he is well-informed ;
it is of these that he is a good judge; viz. he, in each
subject-matter, is a judge, who is well-educated in that
subject-matter, and he is in an absolute sense a judge,
who is in all of them well-educated.'* Again : " Young
men come to be mathematicians and the like, but they
cannot possess practical judgment; for this talent is
employed upon individual facts, and these are learned
only by experience ; and a youth has not experience,
for experience is only gained by a course of years.
And so, again, it would appear that a boy may be a
mathematician, but not a philosopher, or learned in
physics, and for this reason, — ^because the one study
deals with abstractions, while the other studies gain
Revealed Religion . 415
their principles from experience, and in the latter sub-
jects youths do not give assent, but make assertions,
but in the former they know what it is that they are
handling/'
These words of a heathen philosopher, laying down
broad principles about all knowledge, express a general
rule, which in Scripture is applied authoritatively to the
case of revealed knowledge in particular ; — and that not
once or twice only, but continually, as is notorious.
For instance : — '' I have understood,^' says the Psalmist,
" more than all my teachers, because Thy testimonies
are my meditation." And so our Lord : " He that
hath ears, let him hear." " If any man will do His
will, he shall know of the doctrine." And " He that
is of God, heareth the words of God." Thus too the
Angels at the Nativity announce " Peace to men of
good will." And we read in the Acts of the Apostles
of ''Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened to attend
to those things which were said by Paul." And
we are told on another occasion, that " as many as were
ordained," or disposed by God, " to life everlasting,
believed." And St. John tells us, " He that knoweth
God, heareth us ; he that is not of God, heareth us
not; by this we know the spirit of truth, and the
spirit of error."
1.
Relying then on these authorities, human and Divine,
I have no scruple in beginning the review I shall take
of Christianity by professing to consult for those only
whose minds are properly prepared for it ; and by being
4i 6 Inference and Assent in Religion.
prepared, I mean to denote those who are imbued with
the religious opinions and sentiments which I have
identified with Natural Religion. I do not address
myself to those, who in moral evil and physical see
nothing more than imperfections of a parallel nature ;
who consider that the difference in gravity between
the two is one of degree only, not of kind ; that moral
evil is merely the offspring of physical, and that as we
remove the latter so we inevitably remove the former ;
that there is a progress of the human race which tends
to the annihilation of moral evil ; that knowledge is
virtue, and vice is ignorance ; that sin is a bugbear,
not a reality ; that the Creator does not punish except
in the sense of correcting; that vengeance in Him
would of necessity be vindictiveness ; that all that we
know of Him, be it much or little, is through the laws
of nature ; that miracles are impossible ; that prayer to
Him is a superstition ; that the fear of Him is unmanly;
that sorrow for sin is slavish and abject; that the only
intelligible worship of Him is to act well our part in
the world, and the only sensible repentance to do better
in future ; that if we do our duties in this life, we may
take our chance for the next ; and that it is of no use
perplexing our minds about the future state, for it is
all a matter of guess. These opinions characterize a
civilized age; and if I say that I will not argue about
Christianity with men who hold them, I do so, not as
claiming any right to be impatient or peremptory with
any one, but because it is plainly absurd to attempt to
prove a second proposition to those who do not admit
the first.
Revealed Religion . 417
I assume then that the above system of opinion is
simply false, inasmuch as it contradicts the primary
teachings of nature in the human race, wherever a
religion is found and its workings can be ascertained.
I assume the presence of Grod in our conscience, and the
universal experience, as keen as our experience of bodily
pain, of what we call a sense of sin or guilt. This
sense of sin, as of something not only evil in itself, but
an affront to the good God, is chiefly felt as regards one
or other of three violations of His Law. He Himself
is Sanctity, Truth, and Love; and the three offences
against His Majesty are impurity, inveracity, and cruelty.
All men are not distressed at these offences alike ; but
the piercing pain and sharp remorse which one or other
inflicts upon the mind, till habituated to them, brings
home to it the notion of what sin is, and is the vivid
type and representative of its intrinsic hatefulness.
Starting from these elements, we may determine with-
out difficulty the class of sentiments, intellectual and
moral, which constitute the formal preparation for enter-
ing upon what are called the Evidences of Christianity.
These Evidences, then, presupposeabelief and perception
of the Divine Presence, a recognition of His attributes
and an admiration of His Person viewed under them ; a
conviction of the worth of the soul and of the reality
and momentousness of the unseen world, an understand-
ing that, in proportion as we partake in our own persons
of the attributes which we admire in Him, we are dear to
Him; a consciousness on the contrary that we are far from
exemplifying them, a consequent insight into our guilt
and misery, an eager" hope of reconciliation to Him, a
£ e
4 1 8 Injerence a7td Assettt in Religion.
desire to know and to love Him, and a sensitive looking-
out in all that happens, whether in the course of nature
or of human life, for tokens, if such there be, of His
bestowing on us what we so greatly need. These are
specimens of the state of mind for which I stipulate in
those who would inquire into the truth of Christianity ;
and my warrant for so definite a stipulation lies in the
teaching, as I have described it, of conscience and the
moral sense, in the testimony of those religious rites
which have ever prevailed in all parts of the world, and
in the character and conduct of those who have com-
monly been selected by the popular instinct as the
special favourites of Heaven.
2.
I have appealed to the popular ideas on the subject
of religion, and to the objects of popular admiration
and praise, as illustrating my account of the prepara-
tion of mind which is necessary for the inquirer into
Christianity. Here an obvious objection occurs, in
noticing which I shall be advanced one step farther in
the work which I have undertaken.
It may be urged, then, that no appeal will avail me,
which is made to religions so notoriously immoral as
those of paganism ; nor indeed can it be made without
an explanation. Certainly, as regards ethical teaching,
various religions, which have been popular in the world,
have not supplied any; and in the corrupt state in which
they appear in history, they are little better than schools
of imposture, cruelty, and impurity. Their objects of
worship were immoral as well as false, and their founders
Revealed Religion . 419
and heroes have been in keeping with their gods. This
is undeniable, but it does not destroy the use that may-
be made of their testimony. There is a better side of
their teaching ; purity has often been held in reverence,
if not practised ; ascetics have been in honour ; hospi-
tality has been a sacred duty; and dishonesty and
injustice have been under a ban. Here then, as before,
I take our natural perception of right and wrong as the
standard for determining the characteristics of Natural
Religion, and I use the religious rites and traditions
which are actually found in the world, only so far as
they agree with our moral sense.
This leads me to lay down the general principle, which
I have all along implied : — that no religion is from God
which contradicts our sense of right and wrong. Doubt-
less ; but at the same time we ought to be quite sure
that, in a particular case which is before us, we have
satisfactorily ascertained what the dictates of our moral
nature are, and that we apply them rightly, and whether
the applying them or not comes into question at all.
The precepts of a religion certainly may be absolutely
immoral ; a religion which simply commanded us to lie,
or to have a community of wives, would %'pso facto forfeit
all claim to a divine origin. Jupiter and Neptune, as
represented in the classical mythology, are evil spirits,
and nothing can make them otherwise. And I should
in like manner repudiate a theology which taught that
men were created in order to be wicked and wretched.
I alluded just now to those who consider the doctrine
of retributive punishment, or of divine vengeance, to be
incompatible with the true religion ; but I do not see
E e 2
420 Inference and Assent in Religion.
how they can maintain their ground. In order to do
so, they have first to prove that an act of vengeance must,
as such, be a sin in our own instance; but even this is far
from clear. Anger and indignation against cruelty and
injustice, resentment of injuries, desire that the false, the
ungrateful, and the depraved should meet with punish-
ment, these, if not in themselves virtuous feelings, are at
least not vicious ; but, first from the certainty that, if
habitual, it will run into excess and become sin, and
next because the office of punishment has not been com-
mitted to us, and further because it is a feeling unsuita,ble
to those who are themselves so laden with imperfection
and guilt, therefore vengeance, in itself allowable, is for-
bidden to us. These exceptions do not hold in the case
of a, perfect being, and certainly not in the instance of
the Supreme Judge. Moreover, we see that even men
on earth have difPerent duties, according to their personal
qualifications and their positions in the community. The
rule of morals is the same for all ; and yet, notwith-
standing, what is right in one is not necessarily right in
another. What would be a. crime in a private man to
do, is a crime in a magistrate not to have done : still
wider is the difference between man and his Maker.
Nor must it be forgotten, that, as I have observed
above, retributive justice is the very attribute under
which God is primarily brought before us in the teach-
ings of our natural conscience.
And further, we cannot determine the character of
particular actions, till we have the whole case before us
out of which they arise; unless, indeed, they are in
themselves distinctively vicious. We all feel the force
Revealed Religion . 421
of the maxim, " Audi alteram partem.^' It is difficult
to trace the path and to determine the scope of Divine
Providence. We read of a day when the Almighty will
condescend to place His actions in their completeness
before His creatures, and '^ will overcome when He is
judged/' If, till then, we feel it to be a duty to suspend
our judgment concerning certain of His actions or pre-
cepts, we do no more than what we do every day in the
case of an earthly friend or enemy, whose conduct in
some point requires explanation. It surely is not too
much to expect of us that we should act with parallel
caution, and be "memoresconditionis nostras'" as regards
the acts of our Creator. There is a poem of Parnell's
which strikingly brings home to us how differently the
divine appointments will look in the light of day, from
what they appear to be in our present twilight. An
Angel, in disguise of a man, steals a golden cup,
sti-angles an infant, and throws a guide into the stream,
and then explains to his horrified companion, that acts
which would be enormities in man, are in him, as
God's minister, deeds of merciful correction or of
retribution.
Moreover, when we are about to pass judgment on the
dealings of Providence with other men, we shall do well
to consider first His dealings with ourselves. We can-
not know about others, about ourselves we do know
something ; and we know that He has ever been good
to us, and not severe. Is it not wise to argue from what
we actually know to what we do not know ? It may
turn out in the day of account, that unforgiven souls,
while charging His laws with injustice in the case of
422 Inference and Assent in Religion.
others, may be unable to find fault with His dealings
severally towards themselves.
As to those various religions which, together with
Christianity, teach the doctrine of eternal punishment,
here again we ought, before we judge, to understand, not
only the whole state of the case, but what is meant by
the doctrine itself. Eternity, or endlessness, is in itself
only a negative idea, though punishment is positive. Its
fearful force, as added to punishment, lies in what it is
not; it means no change of state, no annihilation, no
restoration. But it cannot become a quality of punish-
ment, any more than a man's living seventy years is a
quality of his mind, or enters into the idea of his virtues
or talents. If punishment be attended by continuity, by
a sense of duration and succession, by the mental presence
of its past and its future, by a sustained power of real-
izing it,^ this must be because it is endless and some-
thing more ; such inflictions are an addition to its end-
lessness, and do not necessarily belong to it because it
is endless. As I have already said, the great mystery is,
not that evil has no end, but that it had a beginning.
But I submit the whole subject to the Theological School.
3.
One of the most important effects of Natural Religion
on the mind, in preparation for Revealed, is the antici-
' " Dehac damnatorum saltern hominum respiratione, nihil adhuc certi
decretum est ab Ecclesifl, Catliolica : ut propterca non teiiiere, tanquam
absurda, sit explodenda sanctissimorum I'atrum hac opinio: quanivis &
communi sensu Catbolicorum hoc tempore sit aliena." — Petavius de
Angelis, fin.
Revealed Religion. 423
pation whicli it creates, that a Revelation will be given.
That earnest desire of it, which religious minds cherish,
leads the way to the expectation of it. Those who know
nothing of the wounds of the soul, are not led to deal
with the question, or to consider its circumstances -, but
when our attention is roused, then the more steadily we
dwell upon it, the more probable does it seem that a
revelation has been or will be given to us. This pre-
sentiment is founded on our sense, on the one hand, of
the infinite goodness of God, and, on the other, of our
own extreme misery and need — two doctrines which
are the primary constituents of Natural Religion. It is
difficult to put a limit to the legitimate force of this
antecedent probability. Some minds will feel it to be
so powerful, as to recognize in it almost a proof, without
direct evidence, of the divinity of a religion claiming to
be the true, supposing its history and docrine are free
from positive objection, and there be no rival religion
with plausible claims of its own. Nor ought this trust
in a presumption to seem preposterous to those who are
so confident, on h priori grounds, that the moon is inha-
bited by rational beings, and that the course of nature is'
never crossed by miraculous agency. Any how, very
little positive evidence seems to be necessary, when the
mind is penetrated by the strong anticipation which I
am supposing. It was this instinctive apprehension, as
we may conjecture, which carried on Dionysius and
Damaris at Athens to a belief in Christianity, though
St. Paul did no miracle there, and only asserted the
doctrines of the Divine Unity, the Resurrection, and the
universal judgment, while, on the other hand, it had had
424 Inference arid Assent i7i Religion.
no tendency to attach tliem to any of the mythological
rites in which the place abounded.
Here my method of argument differs from thatadopted
by Paley in his Evidences of Christianity. This clear-
headed and almost mathematical reasoner postulates,
for his proof of its miracles, only thus much, that, under
the circumstances of the case, a revelation is not impro-
bable. He says, " We do not assume the attributes of
the Deity, or the existence of a future state.''^ " It is
not necessary for our purpose that these propositions
(viz. that a future existence should be destined by God
for His human creation, and that, being so destined. He
should have acquainted them with it,) be capable of
proof, or even that, by arguments drawn from the light
of nature, they can be made out as probable ; it is
enough that we are able to say of them, that they are
not so violently improbable, so contradictory to what
we already believe of the divine power and character,
that [they] ought to be rejected at first sight, and to be
rejected by whatever strength or complication of evi-
dence they be attested/^ He has such confidence in
the strength of the testimony which he can produce in
favour of the Christian miracles, that he only asks to
be allowed to bring it into court.
I confess to much suspicion of legal proceedings and
legal arguments, when used in questions whether of
history or of philosophy. Rules of court are dictated by
what is expedient on the whole and in the long run; but
they incur the risk of being unjust to the claims of par-
ticular cases. Why am I to begin with taking up a
position not my own, and unclothing my mind of that
Revealed Religion. 425
large outfit of existing thoughts^ principles, likings,
desires, and hopes, which make me what I am ? If I
am asked to use Paley's argument for my own conver-
sion, I say plainly I do not want to be converted by a
smart syllogism -^ if I am asked to convert others by
it, I say plainly I do not care to overcome their reason
without touching their hearts. I wish to deal, not with
controversialists, but with inquirers.
I think Paley's argument clear, clever, and powerful;
and there is something which looks like charity in going
out into the highways and hedges, and compelling men
to come in ; but in this matter some exertion on the
part of the persons whom I am to convert is a condition
of atrue conversion. They who have no religious earnest-
ness are at the mercy, day by day, of some new argu-
ment or fact, which may overtake them, in favour of one
conclusion or the other. And how, after all, is a man
better for Christianity, who has never felt the need of it
or the desire ? On the other hand, if he has longed for
a revelation to enlighten him and to cleanse his heart,
why may he not use, in his inquiries after it, that just
and reasonable anticipation of its probability, which such
longing has opened the way to his entertaining ?
Men are too well inclined to sit at home, instead of
stirring themselves to inquire whether a revelation has
been given ; they expect its evidences to come to them
without their trouble \ they act, not as suppliants, but
as judges.* Modes of argument such as Paley's, en-
courage this state of mind j they allow men to forget
■* Vide supra, p. 302.
' Vide the author's Occasiontil Sermons, No. 5.
426 Inference and Assent in Religion,
that revelation is a boon, not a debt on the part of the
Giver ; they treat it as a mere historical phenomenon.
If I was told that some great man, a foreigner, whom I
did not know, had come into town, and was on his way
to call on me, and to go over my house, I should send to
ascertain the fact, and meanwhile should do my best
to put my house into a condition to receive him. He
would not be pleased if I left the matter to take its
chance, and went on the maxim that seeing was believing.
Like this is the conduct of those who resolve to treat
the Almighty with dispassionateness, a judicial temper,
clearheadedness, and candour. It is the way with some
men, (surely not a good way,) to say, that without these
lawyerlike qualifications conversion is immoral. It is
their way, a miserable way, to pronounce that there
is no religious love of truth where there is fear of error.
On the contrary, I would maintain that the fear of error
is simply necessary to the genuine love of truth. No
inquiry comes to good which is not conducted under a
deep sense of responsibility, and of the issues depending
upon its determination. Even the ordinary matters of
life are an exercise of conscientiousness; and where
conscience is, fear must be. So much is this acknow-
ledged just now, that there is almost an affectation, in
popular literature, in the case of criticisms on the fine
arts, on poetry, and music, of insisting upon con-
scientiousness in writing, painting, or singing ; and that
earnestness and simplicity of mind, which makes men
fear to go wrong in these minor matters, has surely a
place in the most serious of all undertakings.
It is on these grounds that, in considering Christianity,
Revealed Religion. 427
I start with, conditions different from Paley's ; not,
however, as undervaluing the force and the serviceable-
ness of his argument, but as preferring inquiry to
disputation in a question about truth.
4.
There is another point on which my basis of argument
differs from Paley's. He argues on the principle that the
credentials, which ascertain for us a message from above,
are necessarily in their nature miraculous ; nor have I
any thought of venturing to say otherwise. In fact, all
professed revelations have been attended, in one shape or
another, with the profession of miracles ; and we know
how direct and unequivocal are the miracles of both the
Jewish Covenant and of our own. However, my object
here is to assume as little as possible as regards facts, and
to dwell only on what is patent and notorious ; and there-
fore I will only insist on those coincidences and their
cumulations, which, though not in themselves miracu-
lous, do irresistibly force upon us, almost by the law of
our nature, the presence of the extraordinary agency of
Him whose being we already acknowledge. Though
coincidences rise out of a combination of general laws,
there is no law of those coincidences ; ® they have a cha-
racter of their own, and seem left by Providence in His
own hands, as the channel by which, inscrutable to us.
He may make known to us His will.
For instance, if I am a believer in a God of Truth
and Avenger of dishonesty, and know for certain that a
« Vide supra, p. 84.
428 hiference and Assent in Religion,
market-woman, after calling on Him to strike her dead
if she had in her possession a piece of money not hers,
did fall down dead on the spot, and that the money was
found in her hand, how can I call this a blind coinci-
dence, and not discern in it an act of Providence over
and above its general laws ? So, certainly, thought the
inhabitants of an English town, when they erected a
pillar as a record of such an event at the place where
it occurred. And if a Pope excommunicates a great
conqueror ; and he, on hearing the threat, says to one of
his friends, " Does he think the world has gone back a
thousand years ? does he suppose the arms will fall from
the hands of my soldiers ? " and within two years, on the
retreat over the snows of Russia, as two contemporary
historians relate, " famine and cold tore their arms from
the grasp of the soldiers," " they fell from the hands of
the bravest and most robust," and " destitute of the
power of raising them from the ground, the soldiers left
them in the snow;" is not this too, though no miracle,
a coincidence so special, as rightly to be called a Divine
judgment ? So thinks Alison, who avows with religious
honesty, that " there is something in these marvellous
coincidences beyond the operation of chance, and which
even a Protestant historian feels himself bound to mark
for the observation of future years."'' And so, too, of a
cumulation of coincidences, separately less striking;
when Spelman sets about establishing the fact of the ill-
fortune which in a multitude of instances has followed
upon acts of sacrilege, then, even though in many in-
Btances it has not followed, and in many instances he
' History, vol. viii.
Revealed Religion. 429
exaggerates, still there may be a large residuum of cases
which cannot be properly resolved into the mere accident
of concurrent causes, but must in reason be considered
the warning voice of God. So, at least, thought Gibson,
Bishop of London, when he wrote, " Many of the in-
Btances, and those too well-attested, are so terrible in
the event, and in tlie circumstances so surprising, that
no considering person can well pass them over."
I think, then, that the circumstances under which
a professed revelation comes to us, may be such as to
impress both our reason and our imagination with a
sense of its truth, even though no appeal be made to
strictly miraculous intervention — in saying which I do
not mean of course to imply that those circumstances,
when traced back to their first origins, are not the
outcome of such intervention, but that the miraculous
intervention addresses us at this day in the guise of
those circumstances ; that is, of coincidences, which are
indications, to the illative sense of those who believe in
a Moral Governor, of His immediate Presence, especially
to those who in addition hold with me the strong
antecedent probability that, in His mercy, He will thus
Bupernaturally present Himself to our apprehension.
5.
Now as to the fact; has what is so probable in anticipa-
tion actually been granted to us, or have we still to look
out for it ? It is very plain, supposing it has been granted,
which among all the religions of the world comes from
God : and if it is not that, a revelation is not yet given,
and we must look forward to the future. There is only one
430 Inference and Assent in Religion.
Religion in the world which, tends to fulfil the aspirations,
needs, and foreshadowings of natural faith and devotion.
It may be said, perhaps, that, educated in Christianity,
I merely judge of it by its own principles; but this is not
the fact. For, in the first place, I have taken my idea of
what a revelation must be, in good measure, from the
actual religions of the world ; and as to its ethics, the
ideas with which I come to it are derived not simply
from the Gospel, but prior to it from heathen moralists,
whom Fathers of the Church and Ecclesiastical writers
have imitated or sanctioned ; and as to the intellectual
position from which I have contemplated the subject,
Aristotle has been my master. Besides, I do not here
single out Christianity with reference simply to its par-
ticular doctrines or precepts, but for a reason which is
on the surface of its history. It alone has a definite
message addressed to all mankind. As far as I know,
the rehgion of Mahomet has brought into the world no
new doctrine whatever, except, indeed, that of its own
divine origin ; and the character of its teaching is too
exact a reflection of the race, time, place, and climate in
which it arose, to admit of its becoming universal. The
same dependence on external circumstances is charac-
teristic, so far as I know, of the religions of the far
East J nor am I sure of any definite message from God
to man which they convey and protect, though they
may have sacred books. Christianity, on the other
hand, is in its idea an announcement, a preaching; it
is the depository of truths beyond human discovery,
momentous, practical, maintained one and the same in
substance in every age from its first, and addressed to
Revealed Religion . 431
all mankind. And it has actually been embraced and is
found in all parts of the world, in all climates, among
all races, in all ranks of society, under every degree of
civilization, from barbarism to the highest cultivation of
mind. Coming to set right and to govern the world, it
has ever been, as it ought to be, in conflict with large
masses of men, with the civil power, with physical force,
with adverse philosophies ; it has had successes, it has
had reverses ; but it has had a grand history, and has
effected great things, and is as vigorous in its age as in
its youth. In all these respects it has a distinction in
the world and a pre-eminence of its own ; it has upon it
prima facie signs of divinity ; I do not know what can
be advanced by rival religions to match prerogatives so
special ; so that I feel myself justified in saying either
Christianity is from God, or a revelation has not yet
been given to us.
It will not surely be objected, as a point in favour of
some of the Oriental religions, that they are older than
Christianity by some centuries; yet, should it be so
said, it must be recollected that Christianity is only the
continuation and conclusion of what professes to be an
earlier revelation, which may be traced back into pre-
historic times, till it is lost in the darkness that hangs
over them. As far as we know, there never was a time
when that revelation was not, — a revelation continuous
and systematic, with distinct representatives and an
orderly succession. And this, I suppose, is far more
than can be said for the religions of the East.
432 hiference afid Assent z« Religion.
6.
Here, then, I am brought to the consideration of the
Hebrew nation and the Mosaic religion, as the first step
in the direct evidence for Christianity.
The Jews are one of the few Oriental nations who are
known in history as a people of progress, and their
line of progress is the development of religious truth.
In that their own line they stand by themselves among
all the populations, not only of the East, but of the
West. Their country may be called the classical home
of the religious principle, as G-reece is the home of
intellectual power, and Rome that of political and prac-
tical wisdom. Theism is their life ; it is emphatically
their natural religion, for they never were without it,
and were made a people by means of it. This is a
phenomenon singular and solitary in history, and must
have a meaning. If there be a God and Providence,
it must come from Him, whether immediately or indi-
rectly ; and the people themselves have ever maintained
that it has been His direct work, and has been recog-
nized by Him as such. We are apt to treat pretences
to a divine mission or to supernatural powers as of
frequent occurrence, and on that score to dismiss them
from our thoughts ; but we cannot so deal with Judaism.
WTien mankind had universally denied the first lesson
of their conscience by lapsing into polytheism, is it
a thing of slight moment that there was just one excep-
tion to the rule, that there was just one people who, first
by their rulers and priests, and afterwards by their own
unanimous zeal, professed, as their distinguishing doc-
Revealed Religion. 433
trine, the Divine Unity and Grovernment of the world,
and that, moreover, not only as a natural truth, but as
revealed to them by that God Himself of whom they
spoke, — who so embodied it in their national polity, that
a Theocracy was the only name by which it could be
called? It was a people founded and set up in Theism,
kept together by Theism, and maintaining Theism for a
period from first to last of 2000 years, till the dissolution
of their body politic ; and they have maintained it since
in their state of exile and wandering for 2000 years
more. They begin with the beginning of history, and
the preaching of this august dogma begins with them.
They are its witnesses and confessors, even to torture
and death ; on it and its revelation are moulded their
lews and government; on this their politics, philosophy,
and literature are founded ; of this truth their poetry is
the voice, pouring itself out in devotional compositions
which Christianity, through all its many countries and
ages, has been unable to rival ; on this aboriginal truth,
as time goes on, prophet after prophet bases his further
revelations, with a sustained reference to a time when,
according to the secret counsels of its Divine Object and
Author, it is to receive completion and perfection, — till
at length that time comes.
The last age of their history is as strange as their first.
When that time of destined blessing came, which they had
so accurately marked out, and were so carefully waiting
for — a time which found them, in fact, more zealous for
their Law, and for the dogma it enshrined, than they ever
had been before — then, instead of any final favour coming
on them from above, they fell under the power of their
Ff
434 Inference and Assent in Religion.
enemies, and -were overthrown, their holy city razed to
the ground, their polity destroyed, and the remnant of
their people cast off to wander far and away through
every land except their own, as we find them at this day;
lasting on, century after century, not absorbed in other
populations, not annihilated, as likely to last on, as un-
likely to be restored, as far as outward appearances go,
now as a thousand years ago. What nation has so
grand, so romantic, so terrible a history ? Does it not
fulfil the idea of, what the nation calls itself, a chosen
people, chosen for good and evil ? Is it not an exhibi-
tion in a course of history of that primary declaration of
conscience, as I have been determining it, "With the
upright Thou shalt be upright, and with the froward
Thou shalt be froward '^ ? It must have a meaning, if
there is a God. We know what was their witness of
old time ; what is their witness now ?
Why, I say, was it that, after so memorable a career,
when their sins and sufferings were now to come to an
end, when they were looking out for a deliverance and
a Deliverer, suddenly all was reversed for once and for
all ? They were the favoured servants of God, and yet
a peculiar reproach and note of infamy is affixed to their
name. It was their belief that His protection was un-
changeable, and that their Law would last for ever ; —
it was their consolation to be taught by an uninterrupted
tradition, that it could not die, except by changing into
a new self, more wonderful than it was before ; — it was
their faithful expectation that a promised King was
coming, the Messiah, who would extend the sway of
Israel over all people ; — it was a condition of their cove-
Revealed Religion. 435
nant, that, as a reward to Abraham, their first father,
the day at length should dawn when the gates of their
narrow land, should open, and they should pour out for
the conquest and occupation of the whole earth; — and,
I repeat, when the day came, they did go forth, and
they did spread into all lands, but as hopeless exiles,
as eternal wanderers.
Are we to say that this failure is a proof that, after all,
there was nothing providential in their history ? For
myself, I do not see how a second portent obliterates a
first ; and, in truth, their own testimony and their own
sacred books carry us on towards a better solution of the
diflficulty. I have said they were in Grod^s favour under
a covenant, — perhaps they did not fulfil the conditions
of it. This indeed seems to be their own account of
the matter, though it is not clear what their breach of
engagement was. And that in some way they did sin,
whatever their sin was, is corroborated by the well-
known chapter in the Book of Deuteronomy, which so
strikingly anticipates the nature of their punishment.
That passage, translated into Grreek as many as 350
years before the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, has on it
the marks of a wonderful prophecy ; but I am not now
referring to it as such, but merely as an indication that
the disappointment, which actually overtook them at the
Christian era, was not necessarily out of keeping with
the original divine purpose, or again with the old pro-
mise made to them, and their confident expectation of
its fulfilment. Their national ruin, which came instead
of aggrandizement, is described in that book, in spite
of all promises, with an emphasis and minuteness which
Ff 2
436 Inference and Assent in Religion.
prove that it was contemplated long before, at least as
a possible issue of tbe fortunes of Israel. Among other
inflictions which should befall the guilty people, it was
told them that they should fall down before their ene-
mies, and should be scattered throughout all the king-
doms of the earth ; that they never should have quiet in
those nations, or have rest for the sole of their foot ;
that they were to have a fearful heart and languishing
eyes, and a soul consumed with heaviness ; that they
were to suffer wrong, and to be crushed at all times,
and to be astonished at the terror of their lot ; that their
sons and daughters were to be given to another people,
and they were to look and to sicken all the day, and their
life was ever to hang in doubt before them, and fear to
haunt them day and night ; that they should be a pro-
verb and a by-word of all people among whom they were
brought ; and that curses were to come on them, and to
be signs and wonders on them and their seed for ever.
Such are some portions, and not the most terrible, of
this extended anathema ; and its partial accomplishment
at an earlier date of their history was a warning to them,
when the destined time drew near, that, however great
the promises made to them might be, those promises
were dependent on the terms of the covenant which
stood between them and their Maker, and that, as they
had turned to curses at that former time, so they might
turn to curses again.
This grand drama, so impressed with the characters
of supernatural agency, concerns us here only in its
bearing upon the evidence for the divine origin of
Christianity; and it is at this point that Christianity
Revealed Religion. 437
comes upon the historical scene. It is a notorious fact
that it issued from the Jewish land and people; and, had
it no other than this historical connexion with Judaism,
it would have some share in the prestige of its original
home. But it claims to be far more than this ; it pro-
fesses to be the actual completion of the Mosaic Law,
the promised means of deliverance and triumph to the
nation, which that nation itself, as I have said, has since
considered to be, on account of some sin or other, with-
held or forfeited. It professes to be, not the casual,
but the legitimate offspring, heir, and successor of the
Mosaic covenant, or rather to be Judaism itself, de-
veloped and transformed. Of course it has to prove its
claim, as well as to prefer it ; but if it succeeds in doing
so, then all those tokens of the Divine Presence, which
distinguish the Jewish history, at once belong to it, and
are a portion of its credentials.
And at least the prima facie view of its relations
towards Judaism is in favour of these pretensions. It
is an historical fact, that, at the very time that the Jews
committed their unpardonable sin, whatever it was, and
were driven out from their home to wander over the
earth, their Christian brethren, born of the same stock,
and equally citizens of Jerusalem, did also issue forth
from the same home, but in order to subdue that same
earth and make it their own ; that is, they undertook the
very work which, according to the promise, their nation
actually was ordained to execute ; and, with a method of
their own indeed, and with a new end, and only slowly
and painfully, but still really and thoroughly, they did
it. And since that time the two children of the promise
43^ Inference and Assent in Religion.
have ever been found together — of the promise forfeited
and the promise fulfilled ; and whereas the Christian has
been in high place^ so the Jew has been degraded and
despised — the one has been '' the head/^ and the other
"the tail;'^ so that, to go no farther, the fact that
Christianity actually has done what Judaism was to
have done, decides the controversy, by the logic of facts,
in favour of Christianity. The prophecies announced
that the Messiah was to come at a definite time and
place; Christians point to Him as coming then and
there, as announced ; they are not met by any counter
claim or rival claimant on the part of the Jews, only by
their assertion that He did not come at all, though up
to the event they had said He was then and there coming.
Further, Christianity clears up the mystery which hangs
over Judaism, accounting fully for the punishment of
the people, by specifying their sin, their heinous sin. If,
instead of hailing their own Messiah, they crucified Him,
then the strange scourge which has pursued them after
the deed, and the energetic wording of the curse before
it, are explained by the very strangeness of their guilt; —
or rather, their sin is their punishment; for in rejecting
their Divine King, they i'pso facto lost the living prin-
ciple and tie of their nationality. Moreover, we see what
led them into error; they thought a triumph and an
empire were to be given to them at once, which were
given indeed eventually, but by the slow and gradual
growth of many centuries and a long warfare.
On the whole, then, I observe, on the one hand, that,
Judaism having been the channel of religious traditions
which are lost in the depth of their antiquity, of course
Revealed Religion. 439
it is a great point for Christianity to succeed in proving
that it is the legitimate heir to that former religion.
Nor is it, on the other, of less importance to the signifi-
cance of those early traditions to be able to determine
that they were not lost together with their original store-
house, but were transferred, on the failure of Judaism, to
the custody of the Christian Church. And this apparent
correspondence between the two is in itself a presump-
tion for such correspondence being real. Next, I
observe, that if the history of Judaism is so wonderful
as to suggest the presence of some special divine agency
in its appointments and fortunes, still more wonderful
and divine is the history of Christianity; and again it is
more wonderful still, that two such wonderful creations
should span almost the whole course of ages, during
which nations and states have been in existence, and
should constitute a professed system of continued
intercourse between earth and heaven from first to last
amid all the vicissitudes of human affairs. This pheno-
menon again carries on its face, to those who believe in
a God, the probability that it has that divine origin
which it professes to have ; and, (when viewed in the
light of the strong presumption which I have insisted
on, that in Cod's mercy a revelation from Him will be
granted to us, and of the contrast presented by other
religions, no one of which professes to be a revelation
direct, definite, and integral as this is,) — this pheno-
menon, I say, of cumulative marvels raises that proba-
bility, both for Judaism and Christianity, in religious
minds, almost to a certainty.
440 Iiifcrefice and Assent in Religion.
7.
If Christianity is connected with Judaism as closely as
I have been supposing, then there have been, by means
of the two, direct communications between man and his
Maker from time immemorial down to this day — a great
prerogative such, that it is nowhere else even claimed.
No other religion but these two professes to be the organ
of a formal revelation, certainly not of a revelation which
is directed to the benefit of the whole human race. Here
it is that Mahometanism fails, though it claims to carry
on the line of revelation after Christianity; for it is the
mere creed and rite of certain races, bringing with it, as
such, no gifts to our nature, and is rather a reformation
of local corruptions, and a return to the ceremonial wor-
ship of earlier times, than a new and larger revelation.
And while Christianity was the heir to a dead religion,
Mahometanism was little more than a rebellion against
a living one. Moreover, though Mahomet professed to
be the Paraclete, no one pretends that he occupies a place
in the Christian Scriptures as prominent as that which
the Messiah fills in the Jewish. To this especial promi-
nence of the Messianic idea I shall now advert ; that is,
to the prophecies of the Old Scriptures, and to the argu-
ment which they furnish in favour of Christianity ; and
though I know that argument might be clearer and more
exact than it is, and I do not pretend here to do much
more than refer to the fact of its existence, still so far
forth as we enter into it, will it strengthen our convic-
tion of the claim to divinity both of the Religion which
Revealed Religion. 44 1
is the organ of those prophecies, and of the Religion
which is their object.
Now that the Jewish Scriptures were in existence long
before the Christian era, and were in the sole custody of
the Jews, is undeniable ; whatever then their Scriptures
distinctly say of Christianity, if not attributable to chance
or to happy conjecture, is prophetic. It is undeniable
too, that the Jews gathered from those books that a
great Personage was to be born of their stock, and to
conquer the whole world and to become the instrument
of extraordinary blessings to it; moreover, that he would
make his appearance at a fixed date, and that, the very
date when, as it turned out, our Lord did actually come.
This is the great outline of the prediction, and if nothing
more could be said about them than this, to prove as
much as this is far from unimportant. And it is unde-
niable, I say, both that the Jewish Scriptures contain
thus much, and that the Jews actually understood them
as containing it.
First, then, as to what Scripture declares. From the
book of Genesis we learn that the chosen people was set
up in this one idea, viz. to be a blessing to the whole
earth, and that, by means of one of their own race, a
greater than their father Abraham. This was the mean-
ing and drift of their being chosen. There is no room
for mistake here ; the divine purpose is stated from the
first with the utmost precision. At the very time of
Abraham's call, he is told of it : — *^ I will make of thee
a great nation, and in thee shall all tribes of the earth be
blessed.^' Thrice is this promise and purpose announced
in Abraham's history ; and after Abraham's time it is
442 Inference and Assent in Religion.
repeated to Isaac, *' In thy seed shall all the nations of
the earth be blessed ;" and after Isaac to Jacob, when a
wanderer from his home, " In thee and in thy seed shall
all the tribes of the earth be blessed/' And from Jacob
the promise passes on to his son Judah, and that with
an addition, viz. with a reference to the great Person
who was to be the world-wide blessing, and to the date
when He should come. Judah was the chosen son of
Jacob, and his staff or sceptre, that is, his patriarchal
authority, was to endure till a greater than Judah came,
BO that the loss of the sceptre, when it took place, was
the sign of His near approach. " The sceptre," says
Jacob on his death-bed, " shall not be taken away from
Judah, until He come for whom it is reserved," or "who
is to be sent," "and He shall be the expectation of the
nations.''^
Such was the categorical prophecy, literal and un-
equivocal in its wording, direct and simple in its scope.
8 Before and apart from Christianity, the Samaritan Version reads,
"donee veniat Pacificus, et ad ipsum congreg-abiintur populi." The Tar-
gum, " donee veniat Messias, cujus est regnum, et obedient populi." The
Septuagint, " donee veiiiant qua; reservata sunt illi " (or " donee veniat
cui reservatum est "), " et ipse expectatio gentium." And so again the
Vulgate, "donee veniat qui mittendus est.et ipse erit expectatio gentium."
The ingenious translation of some learned men (" donee venerit Juda
Siluntem," i. e. " the tribe-scoptre shall not depart from Judah till
Judah comes to Shiloh "), with the explanation that the tribe of Judah
had the leadership in the war against the Canaanites, vide Judges i. 1,
2 ; XX. 18 (i. e. after Joshua's death), and that possibly, and for what we
know, the tribe gave up that war-command at Sliiloh, vide Joshua
xviii. 1 (i. e. in Joshua's life-time), labours under three grave diflRculties :
1. That the patriarchal sceptre is a temporary war-conmiand. 2. That
this command belonged to Judah at the very time that it belonged to
Joshua. And 3. That it was finally lost to Judah (Joshua living), before
it had been committed to Judah (Joshua dead).
Revealed Religion, 443
One man, born of the chosen tribe, was the destined
minister of blessing to the whole world ; and the race,
as represented by that tribe, was to lose its old self in
gaining a new self in Him. Its destiny was sealed
upon it in its beginning. An expectation was the
measure of its life. It was created for a great end, and
in that end it had its ending. Such were the initial
communications made to the chosen people, and there
they stopped ; — as if the outline of promise, so sharply
cut, had to be effectually imprinted on their minds,
before more knowledge was given to them ; as if, by the
long interval of years which passed before the more
varied prophecies in type and figure, after the manner of
the East, were added, the original notices might stand
out in the sight of all in their severe explicitness, as
archetypal truths, and guides in interpreting whatever
else was obscure in its wording or complex in its
direction.
And in the second place it is quite clear that the
Jews did thus understand their prophecies, and did
expect their great Ruler, in the very age in which our
Lord came, and in which they, on the other hand, were
destroyed, losing their old self without gaining their
new. Heathen historians shall speak for the fact.
'^ A persuasion had possession of most of them," says
Tacitus, speaking of their resistance to the Romans,
" that it was contained in the ancient books of the
priests that at that very time the East should prevail,
and that men who issued from Judea should obtain the
empire. The common people, as is the way with
human cupidity, having once interpreted in their own
444 Inference and Assent in Religion.
favour this grand destiny, were not even by their
reverses brought round to the truth of facts." And
Suetonius extends the belief: — "The whole East was
rife with an old and persistent belief, that at that time
persons who issued from Judea, should possess the
empire/' After the event of course the Jews drew
back, and denied the correctness of their expectation,
still they could not deny that the expectation had existed.
Thus the Jew Josephus, who was of the Roman party,
says that what encouraged them in the stand they made
against the Romans was "an ambiguous oracle, found
in their sacred writings, that at that date some one of
them from that country should rule the world." He
can but pronounce that the oracle was ambiguous ; he
cannot state that they thought it so.
Now, considering that at that very time our Lord did
appear as a teacher, and founded not merely a religion,
but (what was then quite a new idea in the world) a
system of religious warfare, an aggressive and militant
body, a dominant Catholic Church, which aimed at the
benefit of all nations by the spiritual conquest of all ;
and that this warfare, then begun by it, has gone on
without cessation down to this day, and now is as living
and real as ever it was ; that that militant body has
from the first filled the world, that it has had wonderful
successes, that its successes have on the whole been of
extreme benefit to the human race, that it has imparted
an intelligent notion about the Supreme God to millions
who would have lived and died in irreligion, that it has
raised the tone of morality wherever it has come, has
abolished great social anomalies and miseries, has elevated
Revealed Religion. 445
the female sex to its proper dignity, has protected the
poorer classes, has destroyed slavery, encouraged litera-
ture and philosophy, and had a principal part in that
civilization of human kind, which, with some evils, has
still on the whole been productive of far greater good, —
considering, I say, that all this began at the destined,
expected, recognized season when the old prophecy said
that in one Man, born of the tribe of Judah, all the
tribes of the earth were to be blessed, — I feel I have a
right to say (and my line of argument does not lead me
to say more), that it is at the very least a remarkable
coincidence ; that is, one of those coincidences which,
when they are accumulated, come close upon the idea of
miracle, as being impossible without the Hand of God
directly and immediately in them.
When we have got as far as this, we may go on a
great deal farther. Announcements, which could not
be put forward in the front of the argument, as being
figurative, vague, or ambiguous, may be used validly and
with great eflfect, when they have been interpreted for
us, first by the prophetic outline, and still more by the
historical object. It is a principle which applies to all
matters on which we reason, that what is only a maze of
facts, without order or drift prior to the due explanation,
may, when we once have that explanation, be located
and adjusted with great facility in all its separate parts,
as we know is the case as regards the motions of the
heavenly bodies since the hypothesis of Newton. In
like manner the event is the true key to prophecy, and
reconciles conflicting and divergent descriptions by em-
bodying them in one common representative. Thus it
44^ Inference and Assent in Religion.
is that we learn how, as the prophecies said, the Messiah
could both suflfer, yet be victorious; His kingdom be
Judaic in structure, yet evangelic in spirit; and His
people the children of Abraham, yet " sinners of the
Gentiles/^ These seeming paradoxes, are only parallel
and akin to those others which form so prominent a
feature in the teaching of our Lord and His Apostles.
As to the Jews, since they lived before the event, it is
not wonderful, that, though they were right in their
general interpretation of Scripture as far as it went,
they stopped short of the whole truth ; nay, that even
when their Messiah came, they could not recognize Him
as the promised King as we recognize Him now ; — for
we have the experience of His history for nearly two
thousand years, by which to interpret their Scriptures.
We may partly understand their position towards those
prophecies, by our own at present towards the Apocalypse.
Who can deny the superhuman grandeur and impressive-
ness of that sacred book ! yet, as a prophecy, though
some outlines of the f utureare discernible, how differently
it affects us from the predictions of Isaiah ! either
because it relates to undreamed-of events still to come,
or because it has been fulfilled long ago in events which
in their detail and circumstance have never become
history. And the same remark applies doubtless to
portions of the Messianic prophecies still ; but, if their
fulfilment has been thus gradual in time past, we must
not be surprised though portions of them still await
their slow but true accomplishment in the future.
Revealed Religion. 447
8.
When I implied that in some points of view Chris-
tianity has not answered the expectations of the old
prophecies, of which it claims to be the fulfilment, I had
in mind principally the contrast which is presented to
us between the picture which they draw of the univer-
sality of the kingdom of the Messiah, and that partial
development of it through the world, which is all the
Christian Church can show ; and again the contrast
between the rest and peace which they said He was to
introduce, and the Church's actual history, — the conflicts
of opinion which have raged within its pale, the violent
acts and unworthy lives of many of its rulers, and the
moral degradation of great masses of its people. I do
not profess to meet these difficulties here, except by
saying that the failure of Christianity in one respect in
corresponding to those prophecies cannot destroy the
force of its correspondence to them in others; just as we
may allow that the portrait of a friend is a faulty
likeness to him, and yet be quite sure that it is his
portrait. What I shall actually attempt to show here
is this, — that Christianity was quite aware from the
first of its own prospective future, so unlike the ex-
pectations which the prophets would excite concerning
it, and that it meets the difiiculty thence arising by
anticipation, by giving us its own predictions of what it
was to be in historical fact, predictions which are at once
explanatory comments upon the Jewish Scriptures, and
direct evidences of its own prescience.
I think it observable then, that, though our Lord
448 Inference and Assent in Religion.
claims to be the Messiah, He shows so little of con-
scious dependence on the old Scriptures, or of anxiety to
fulfil them ; as if it became Him, who was the Lord of
the Prophets, to take His own course, and to leave their
utterances to adjust themselves to Him as they could,
and not to be careful to accommodate Himself to them.
The evangelists do indeed show some such natural zeal
in His behalf, and thereby illustrate what I notice in
Him by the contrast. They betray an earnestness to
trace in His Person and history the accomplishment of
prophecy, as when they discern it in His return from
Egypt, in His life at Nazareth, in the gentleness and
tenderness of His mode of teaching, and in the various
minute occurrences of His passion; but He Himself
goes straight forward on His way, of course claiming to
be the Messiah of the Prophets,' still not so much
recurring to past prophecies, as uttering new ones, with
an antithesis not unlike that which is so impressive in
the Sermon on the Mount, when He first says, "It has
been said by them of old time,'* and then adds, " But I
say unto you." Another striking instance of this is seen
in the Names under which He spoke of Himself, which
have little or no foundation in any thing which was said
of Him beforehand in the Jewish Scriptures. They
speak of Him as Euler, Prophet, King, Hope of Israel,
Offspring of Judah, and Messiah ; and His Evangelists
and Disciples call Him Master, Lord, Prophet, Son of
* He appeals to the prophecies in evidence of His Divine mission, in
addressing the people of Nazareth (Luke iv. 18), St. John's disciplts
(Mutt. xi. 5), and the Pharisees (Matt. xxi. 42, and John v. 39), but
not in details. The appeal to details He reserves for His disciples. V\de
Matt. xi. 10 J xxvi. 21. 31. 51 : Luke xxii. 37; xxiv. 27- 46.
Revealed Religion. 449
David, King of Israel, King of the Jews^ and Messiah
or Christ; but He Himself, though, I repeat. He
acknowledges these titles as His own, especially that of
the Christ, chooses as His special designations these two,
Son of God and Son of Man, the latter of which is only
once given Him in the Old Scriptures, and by which
He corrects any narrow Judaic interpretation of them ;
while the former was never distinctly used of Him
before He came, and seems first to have been announced
to the world by the Angel Gabriel and St. John the
Baptist. In those two Names, Son of God and Son of
Man, declaratory of the two natures of Emmanuel, He
separates Himself from the Jewish Dispensation, in
which He was born, and inaugurates the New Covenant.
This is not an accident, and I shall now give some
instances of it, that is, of what I may call the indepen-
dent autocratic view which He takes of His own reli-
gion, into which the old Judaism was melting, and of
the prophetic insight into its spirit and its future which
that view involves. In quoting His own sayings
from the Evangelists for this purpose, I assume (of
which there is no reasonable doubt) that they wrote
before any historical events had happened of a nature to
cause them unconsciously to modify or to colour the
language which their Master used.
1 . First, then, the fact has been often insisted on as a
bold conception, unheard of before, and worthy of divine
origin, that He should even project a universal religion,
and that to be effected by what may be called a pro-
pagandist movement from one centre. Hitherto it had
been the received notion in the world, that each nation
G g
450 Inference and Assent in Religion.
had its own gods. The Romans legislated upon that
basis, and the Jews had held it from the first, holding
of course also, that all gods but their own God were idols
and demons. It is true that the Jews ought to have been
taught by their prophecies what was in store for the world
and for them, and that their first dispersion through the
Empire centuries before Christ came, and the proselytes
which they collected around them in every place, were a
kind of comment on the prophecies larger than their
own ; but we see what was, in fact, when our Lord came,
their expectation from those prophecies, in the passages
which I have quoted above from the Roman historians of
His day. But He from the first resisted those plausible,
but mistaken interpretations of Scripture. In His cradle
indeed He had been recognized by the Eastern Sages as
their king ; the Angel announced that He was to reign
over the house of Jacob ; Nathanael, too, owned Him as
the Messiah with a regal title ; but He, on entering
upon His work, interpreted these anticipations in His
own way, and that not the way of Theudas and Judas of
Galilee, who took the sword, and collected soldiers about
them, — nor the way of the Tempter, who offered Him
" all the kingdoms of the world.'' In the words of the
Evangelists, He began, not to fight, but ^' to preach ;"
and further, to " preach the kingdom of heaven,'' saying,
'^ The time is accomplished, and the kingdom of God is
at hand ; repent, and believe the Gospel." This is the
significant title, *' the kingdom of heaven," — the more
significant, when explained by the attendant precept of
repentance and faith, — on which He founds the polity
wbich He was establishing from first to last. One of
Revealed Religion. 45 1
His last sayings before He suffered was, " My kingdom
is not of this world/' And His last words, before He
left the earth, when His disciples asked Him about His
kingdom, were that they, preachers as they were, and
not soldiers, should " be His witnesses to the end of
the earth,'' should '^preach to all nations, beginning
with Jerusalem," should " go into the world and preach
the Gospel to every creature,'' should " go and make dis-
ciples of all nations till the consummation of all things."
The last Evangelist of the four is equally precise in
recording the initial purpose with which our Lord began
His ministry, viz. to create an empire, not by force, but
by persuasion. " Light is come into the world : every
one that doth evil, hateth the light, but he that doth
truth, Cometh to the light." " Lift up your eyes, and
see the countries, for they are white already to harvest."
"No man can come to Me, except the Father, who
hath sent Me, draw him." " And I, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all things to Myself."
Thus, while the Jews, relying on their Scriptures
with great appearance of reason, looked for a deliverer
who should conquer with the sword, we find that Chris-
tianity, from the first, not by an after-thought upon
trial and experience, but as a fundamental truth, magis-
terially set right that mistake, transfiguring the old
prophecies, and bringing to light, as St. Paul might
say, " the mystery which had been hidden from ages
and generations, but now was made manifest in His
saints, the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles,
which is Christ in you," not simply over you, but in
you, by faith and love, " the hope of glory."
a g 2
452 Inference and Assent in Religion.
2. I have partly anticipated my next remark, which
relates to the means by which the Christian enterprise
was to be carried into effect. That preaching was to
have a share in the victories of the Messiah was plain
from Prophet and Psalmist; but then Charlemagne
preached, and Mahomet preached, with an army to
back them. The same Psalm which speaks of those
" who preach good tidings," speaks also of their King's
*^ foot being dipped in the blood of His enemies •" but
what is so grandly original in Christianity is, that on
its broad field of conflict its preachers were to be simply
unarmed, and to sufEer, but to prevail. If we were not
so familiar with our Lord's words, I think they would
astonish us. " Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst
of wolves.'" This was to be their normal state, and so
it was; and all the promises and directions given to
them imply it. " Blessed are they that suflFer perse-
cution ;" " blessed are ye when they revile you ;" '' the
meek shall inherit the earth ;" " resist not evil ;" *' you
shall be hated of all men for My Name's sake ;" " a
man's enemies shall be they of his own household;"
" he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved,"
What sort of encouragement was this for men who were
to go about an immense work ? Do men in this way
send out their soldiers to battle, or their sons to India
or Australia? The King of Israel hated Micaiah,
because he always " prophesied of him evil." " So
persecuted they the Prophets that were before you,"
says our Lord. Yes, and the Prophets failed; they
were persecuted and they lost the battle. " Take, my
brethren," says St. James, " for an example of suflfering
Revea led Religion . 453
evil, of labour and patience, the Prophets, who spake in
the Name of the Lord/' They were " racked, mocked,
stoned, cut asunder, they wandered about, — of whom
the world was not worthy,^' says St. Paul. What an
argument to encourage them to aim at success by
suffering, to put before them the precedent of those
who suffered and who failed !
Yet the first preachers, our Lord's immediate dis-
ciples, saw no difficulty in a prospect to human eyes
so appalling, so hopeless. How connatural this strange,
unreasoning, reckless courage was with their regenerate
state is shown most signally in St. Paul, as having been
a convert of later vocation. He was no personal asso-
ciate of our Lord's, yet how faithfully he echoes back
our Lord's language ! His instrument of conversion
is ''the foolishness of preaching j" ''the weak things
of the earth confound the strong;" "we hunger and
thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no
home ;" " we are reviled and bless, we are persecuted,
and blasphemed, and are made the refuse of this world,
and the offscouring of all things." Such is the intimate
comprehension, on the part of one who had never seen
our Lord on earth, and knew little from His original
disciples of the genius of His teaching ; — and consider-
ing that the prophecies, upon which he had lived from
his birth, for the most part bear on their surface a
contrary doctrine, and that the Jews of that day did
commonly understand them in that contrary sense, we
cannot deny that Christianity, in tracing out the method
by which it was to prevail in the future, took its own,
independent line, and, in assigning from the first a rule
454 Inference and Assent in Religion.
and a history to its propagation, a rule and a history
which have been carried out to this day, rescues itself
from the charge of but partially fulfilling those Jewish
prophecies, by the assumption of a prophetical character
of its own.
3. Now we come to a third point, in which the
Divine Master explains, and in a certain sense corrects,
the prophecies of the Old Covenant, by a more exact
interpretation of them from Himself. I have granted
that they seemed to say that His coming would issue
in a period of peace and religiousness. " Behold,'' says
the Propljet, "a king shall reign in justice, and princes
shall rule in judgment. The fool shall no more bo
called prince, neither shall the deceitful be called great.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
lie down with the kid. They shall not hurt nor kill
in all My holy mountain, for the earth is filled with
the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of
the sea."
These words seem to predict a reversal of the con-
sequences of the fall, and that reversal has not yet been
granted to us, it is true ; but let us consider how dis-
tinctly Christianity warns us against any such anticipa-
tion. While it is so forcibly laid down in the Gospels
that the history of the kingdom of heaven begins in
suffering and sanctity, it is as plainly said that it results
in unfaithfulness and sin ; that is to say, that, though
there are at all times many holy, many religious men in it,
and though sanctity, as at the beginning, is ever the life
and the substance and the germinal seed of the Divine
Kingdom, yet there will ever be many too, there will be
Revealed Religion , 455
more, who by their lives are a scandal and injury to
it, not a defence. This again is an astonishing an-
nouncement, and the more so when viewed in contrast
with the precepts delivered by our Lord in His Sermon
on the Mount, and His description to the Apostles of
their weapons and their warfare. So perplexing to
Christians was the fact when fulfilled, as it was in no
long time on a large scale, that three of the early here-
sies more or less originated in obstinate, unchristian
refusal to readmit to the privileges of the Gospel those
who had fallen into sin. Yet our Lord^s words are
express : He tells us that " Many are called, few are
chosen;" in the parable of the Marriage Feast, the
servants who are sent out gather together "all that they
found, both bad and good /' the foolish virgins '' had
no oil in their vessels -" amid the good seed an enemy
sows seed that is noxious or worthless ; and ^' the king-
dom is like to a net which gathered together all kind
of fishes ;" and " at the end of the world the Angels
shall go forth, and shall separate the wicked from
among the just/'
Moreover, He not only speaks of His religion as des-
tined to possess a wide temporal power, such, that, as
in the case of the Babylonian, " the birds of the air
should dwell in its branches,'' but He opens on us the
prospect of ambition and rivalry in its leading mem-
bers, when He warns His disciples against desiring the
first places in His kingdom ; nay, of grosser sins, in
His description of the Ruler, who " began to strike his
fellow-servants, and to eat and drink and be drunken,"
— passages which have an awful significance, consider-
456 h^fercnce and Assent in Religion.
ing what kind of men have before now been His chosen
representatives, and have sat in the chair of His
Apostles.
If then it be objected that Christianity does not, as
the old prophets seem to promise, abolish sin and irre-
ligion within its pale, we may answer, not only that it
did not engage to do so, but that actually in a pro-
phetical spirit it warned its followers against the
expectation of its so doing.
9.
According to our Lord's announcements before the
event, Christianity was to prevail and to become a great
empire, and to fill the earth ; but it was to accomplish
this destiny, not as other victorious powers had done,
and as the Jews expected, by force of arms or by other
means of this world, but by the novel expedient of
sanctity and suffering. If some aspiring party of this
day, the great Orleans family, or a branch of the Hohen-
zollern, wishing to found a kingdom, were to profess, as
their only weapon, the practice of virtue, they would
not startle us more than it startled a Jew eighteen
hundred years ago, to be told that his glorious Messiah
was not to fight, like Joshua or David, but simply to
preach. It is indeed a thought so strange, both in its
prediction and in its fulfilment, as urgently to suggest
to us that some Divine Power went with him who con-
ceived and proclaimed it. This is what I have been
saying; — now I wish to consider the fact, which was
predicted, in itself, without reference to its being the
subject whether of a prediction or of a fulfilment ; that
Revealed Religion. 457
is, the history of the rise and establishment of Chris-
tianity; and to inquire whether it is a history that
admits of being resolved^ by any philosophical ingenuity,
into the ordinary operation of moral, social, or political
causes.
As is well known, various writers have attempted to
assign human causes in explanation of the phenomenon:
Gribbon especially has mentioned five, viz. the zeal of
Christians, inherited from the Jews, their doctrine of a
future state, their claim to miraculous power, their vir-
tues, and their ecclesiastical organization. Let us briefly
consider them.
He thinks these five causes, when combined, will fairly
account for the event; but he has not thought of account-
ing for their combination. If they are ever so available
for his purpose, still that availableness arises out of their
coincidence, and out of what does that coincidence
arise ? Until this is explained, nothing is explained,
and the question had better have been let alone.
These presumed causes are quite distinct from each
other, and, I say, the wonder is, what made them
come together. How came a multitude of Gentiles
to be influenced with Jewish zeal ? How came zealots
to submit to a strict, ecclesiastical regime ? What con-
nexion has a secular regime with the immortality of the
soul ? Why should immortality, a philosophical doctrine,
lead to belief in miracles, which is a superstition of the
vulgar ? What tendency had miracles and magic to
make men austerely virtuous ? Lastly, what power
was there in a code of virtue, as calm and enlightened
as that of Antoninus, to generate a zeal as fierce as that
45 8 Inference and Assent in Religion.
of Maccabasus ? Wonderful events before now have
apparently been nothing but coincidences, certainly ;
but they do not become less wonderful by cataloguing
their constituent causes, unless we also show how these
came to be constituent.
However, this by the way; the real question is this, —
are these historical characteristics of Christianity, also in
matter of fact, historical causes of Christianity ? Has
Gibbon given proof that they are ? Has he brought
evidence of their operation, or does he simply conjecture
in his private judgment that they operated ? Whether
they were adapted to accomplish a certain work, is a
matter of opinion ; whether they did accomplish it is a
question of fact. He ought to adduce instances of
their efficiency before he has a right to say that they
are efficient. And the second question is, what is this
effect, of which they are to be considered as causes ?
It is no other than this, the conversion of bodies of
men to the Christian faith. Let us keep this in view.
We have to determine whether these five characteristics
of Christianity were efficient causes of bodies of men
becoming Christians ? I think they neither did effect
such conversions, nor were adapted to do so, and for
these reasons : —
1 . For first, as to zeal, by which Gibbon means party
spirit, or esprit de corps ; this doubtless is a motive
principle when men are already members of a body, but
does it operate in bringing them into it ? The Jews
were born in Judaism, they had a long and glorious
history, and would naturally feel and show esprit de
corps ; but how did party spirit tend to transplant Jew
Revealed Religion. 459
or Gentile out of liis own place into a new society, and
that a society which as yet scarcely was formed in a
society ? Zeal, certainly, may be felt for a cause, or
for a person ; on this point I shall speak presently ; but
Gibbon^s idea of Christian zeal is nothing better than
the old wine of Judaism decanted into new Christian
bottles, and would be too flat a stimulant, even if it
admitted of such a transference, to be taken as a cause
of conversion to Christianity without definite evidence
in proof of the fact. Christians had zeal for Chris-
tianity after they were converted, not before.
2. Next, as to the doctrine of a future state. Gibbon,
seems to mean by this doctrine the fear of hell; now
certainly in this day there are persons converted from
sin to a religious life, by vivid descriptions of the future
punishment of the wicked ; but then it must be recol-
lected that such persons already believe in the doctrine
thus urged upon them. On the contrary, give some
Tract upon hell-fire to one of the wild boys in a large
town, who has had no education, who has no faith ; and
instead of being startled by it, he will laugh at it as
something frightfully ridiculous. The belief in Styx
and Tartarus was dying out of the world at the time
that Christianity came in, as the parallel belief now seems
to be dying out in all classes of our own society. The
doctrine of eternal punishment does only anger the mul-
titude of men in our large towns now, and make them
blaspheme ; why should it have had any other effect on
the heathen populations in the age when our Lord came ?
Yet it was among tliose populations, that He and His
made their way from the first. As to the hope of eternal
460 Inference and Assent in Religion.
life, that doubtless, as well as the fear of hell, was a
most operative doctrine in the case of men who had been
actually converted, of Christians brought before the
magistrate, or writhing under torture, but the thought
of eternal glory does not keep bad men from a bad life
now, and why should it convert them then from their
pleasant sins, to a heavy, mortified, joyless existence,
to a life of ill-usage, fright, contempt, and desolation ?
3. That the claim to miracles should have any wide
influence in favour of Christianity among heathen popu-
lations, who had plenty of portents of their own, is an
opinion in curious contrast with the objection against
Christianity which has provoked an answer from Paley,
viz. that ''Christian miracles are not recited or appealed
to, by early Christian writers themselves, so fully or so
frequently as might have been expected." Paley solves
the difficulty as far as it is a fact, by observing, as I
have suggested, that " it was their lot to contend with
magical agency, against which the mere production of
these facts was not sufficient for the convincing of their
adversaries:" "I do not know," he continues, "whether
they themselves thought it quite decisive of the contro-
versy." A claim to miraculous power on the part of
Christians, which was so unfrequent as to become now
an objection to the fact of their possessing it, can hardly
have been a principal cause of their success.
4. And how is it possible to imagine with Gibbon
that what he calls the " sober and domestic virtues " of
Christians, their " avei'sion to the luxury of the age,"
their " chastity, temperance, and economy," that these
dull qualities were persuasives of a nature to win and
Revealed Religio7i. 46 1
melfc the hard heathen heart, in spite too of the dreary
prospect of the barathrum, the amphitheatre, and the
stake ? Did the Christian morality by its severe beauty
make a convert of Gibbon himself ? On the contrary,
he bitterly says, " It was not in this world that the
primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves
either agreeable or useful." " The virtue of the primi-
tive Christians, like that of the first Eomans, was very
frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance." " Their
gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the
common business and pleasures of life, and their fre-
quent predictions of impending calamities, inspired the
Pagans with the apprehension of some danger which
would arise from the new sect." Here we have not
only Gibbon hating their moral and social bearing, but
his heathen also. How then were those heathen over-
come by the amiableness of that which they viewed
with such disgust ? We have here plain proof that the
Christian character repelled the heathen ; where is the
evidence that it converted them ?
5. Lastly, as to the ecclesiastical organization, this,
doubtless, as time went on, was a special characteristic of
the new religion; but how could it directly contribute to
its extension ? Of course it gave it strength, but it did
not give it life. We are not born of bones and muscles.
It is one thing to make conquests, another to consolidate
an empire. It was before Constantino that Christians
made their great conquests. Rules are for settled times,
not for time of war. So much is this contrast felt in
the Catholic Church now, that, as is well known, in hea-
then countries and in countries which have thrown oflf
462 Inference and Assent in Religion.
her yoke, she suspends her diocesan administration and
her Canon Law, and puts her children under the extra-
ordinary, extra-legal jurisdiction of Propaganda.
This is what I am led to say on Gibbon's Five Causes.
I do not deny that they might have operated now and
then ; Simon Magus came to Christianity in order to
learn the craft of miracles, and Peregrinus from love of
influence and power ; but Christianity made its way,
not by individual, but by broad, wholesale conversions,
and the question is, how they originated ?
It is very remarkable that it should not have oc-
curred to a man of Gibbon's sagacity to inquire, what
account the Christians themselves gave of the matter.
Would it not have been worth while for him to have let
conjecture alone, and to have looked for facts instead ?
Why did he not try the hypothesis of faith, hope, and
charity ? Did he neyer hear of repentance towards God,
and faith in Christ ? Did he not recollect the many words
of Apostles, Bishops, Apologists, Martyrs, all forming
one testimony ? No ; such thoughts are close upon him,
and close upon the truth ; but he cannot sympathize
with them, he cannot beheve in them, he cannot even
enter into them, because he needs the due formation for
such an exercise of mind.' Let us see whether the facts
of the case do not come out clear and unequivocal, if
we will but have the patience to endure them.
A Deliverer of the human race through the Jewish
nation had been promised from time immemorial. The
day came when He was to appear, and He was eagerly
expected; moreover. One actually did make His appear-
I Tide tvpra, pp. 341, 375, 413—416.
Revealed Religion. 463
ance at that date in Palestine, and claimed to be He.
He left the earth without apparently doing much for
the object of His coming. But when He was gone. His
disciples took upon themselves to go forth to preach to
all parts of the earth with the object of preaching fltm,
and collecting converts in His Name. After a little while
they are found wonderfully to have succeeded. Large
bodies of men in various places are to be seen, professing
to be His disciples, owning Him as their King, and
continually swelling in number and penetrating into
the populations of the Roman Empire; at length they
convert the Empire itself. All this is historical fact.
Now, we want to know the farther historical fact, viz.
the cause of their conversion ; in other words, what were
the topics of that preaching which was so effective ? K
we believe what is told us by the preachers and their
converts, the answer is plain. They " preached Christ ;"
they called on men to believe, hope, and place their
affections, in that Deliverer who had come and gone ;
and the moral instrument by which they persuaded them
to do so, was a description of the life, character, mission,
and power of that Deliverer, a promise of His invisible
Presence and Protection here, and of the Vision and
Fruition of Him hereafter. From first to last to
Christians, as to Abraham, He Himself is the centre
and fulness of the dispensation. They, as Abraham,
" see His day, and are glad."
A temporal sovei eign makes himself felt by means of
his subordinate administrators, who bring his power and
will to bear upon every individual of his subjects who
personally know him not ; the universal Deliverer, long
464 Inference and Assent in Religion.
expected, when He came. He too, instead of making and
securing subjects by a visible graciousuess or majesty,
departs ; — hut is found, through His preachers, to have
imprinted the Image ^ or Idea of Himself in the minds of
His subjects individually ; and that Image, apprehended
and worshipped in individual minds, becomes a principle
of association, and a real bond of those subjects one
with another, who are thus united to the body by being
united to that Image ; and moreover that Image, which
is their moral life, when they have been already con-
verted, is also the original instrument of their conversion.
It is the Image of Him who fulfils the one great need
of human nature, the Healer of its wounds, the Physician
of the soul, this Image it is which both creates faith,
and then rewards it.
When we recognize this central Image as the vivify-
ing idea both of the Christian body and of individuals
in it, then, certainly, we are able to take into account
at least two of Gibbon's causes, as having, in connexion
with that idea, some influence both in making converts
and in strengthening them to persevere. It was the
Thought of Christ, not a corporate body or a doctrine,
which inspired that zeal which the historian so poorly
comprehends ; and it was the Thought of Christ which
gave a life to the promise of that eternity, which with-
out Him would be, in any soul, nothing short of an
intolerable burden.
Now a mental vision such as this, perhaps will be
called cloudy, fanciful, unintelligible ; that is, in other
words, miraculous. I think it is so. How, without
» Vide supra, pp. 23—30 and 75—80.
Revealed Religion. 465
the Hand of God, could a new idea, one and tte same,
enter at once into myriads of men, women, and chil-
dren of all ranks, especially the lower, and have power
to wean them from their indulgences and sins, and to
nerve them against the most cruel tortures, and to last
in vigour as a sustaining influence for seven or eight
generations, till it founded an extended polity, broke
the obstinacy of the strongest and wisest government
which the world has ever seen, and forced its way from
its first caves and catacombs to the fulness of imperial
power ?
In considering this subject, I shall confine myself to
the proof, as far as my limits allow, of two points, — first,
that this Thought or Image of Christ was the principle
of conversion and of fellowship ; and next, that among
the lower classes, who had no power, influence, reputa-
tion, or education, lay its principal success.^
As to the vivifying idea, this is St. PauFs account of
it : '* I make known to you the gospel which I preached
to you, which also you have received, and wherein you
stand ; by which also you are saved. For I delivered
to you first of all that which I also received, how that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,"
&c., &c. "I am the least of the Apostles; but, whether
I or they, so we preached, and so you believed." '^ It
has pleased Grod by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe." " We preach Christ crucified."
• Had my limits allowed it, I ought, as a third subject, to have de-
scribed the existing system of impure idolatry, and the wonderful
phenomenon of such multitudes, who had been slaves to it, escaping fi-oui
it by the power of Christianity, — under the guidance of the great work
("On the Gentile and the Jew ") of Dr. DoUinger.
H h
466 Inference and Assent in Religion.
" I determined to know nothing among you, but Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified." " Your Hfe is hid with
Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, shall
appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory."
" I live, but now not I, but Christ liveth in me."
St. Peter, who has been accounted the master of a
separate school, says the same : " Jesus Christ, whom
you have not seen, yet love ; in whom you now believe,
and shall rejoice."
And St. John, who is sometimes accounted a third
master in Christianity : " It hath not yet appeared what
we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear,
we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as
He is."
That their disciples followed them in this sovereign
devotion to an Invisible Lord, will appear as I proceed.
And next, as to the worldly position and character
of His disciples, our Lord, in the well-known passage,
returns thanks to His Heavenly Father "because," He
says, " Thou hast hid these things" — the mysteries of
His kingdom — "from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them to little ones." And, in accordance with
this announcement, St. Paul says that " not many wise
men according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many
noble," became Christians. He, indeed, is one of those
few ; so were others his contemporaries, and, as time
went on, the number of these exceptions increased, so
that converts were found, not a few, in the high places
of the Empire, and in the schools of philosophy and
learning ; but still the rule held, that the great mass of
Christians were to be found in those classes which were
Revealed Religion. 467
of no account in the world, whether on the score of
rank or of education.
We all know this was the case with our Lord and His
Apostles. It seems almost irreverent to speak of their
temporal employments, when we are so simply accus-
tomed to consider them in their spiritual associations ;
but it is profitable to remind ourselves that our Lord
Himself was a sort of smith, and made ploughs and
cattle-yokes. Four Apostles were fishermen, one a
petty tax collector, two husbandmen, and another is
said to have been a market gardener.'' When Peter and
John were brought before the Council, they are spoken
of as being, in a secular point of view, " illiterate men,
and of the lower sort,'^ and thus they are spoken of in
a later age by the Fathers.
That their converts were of the same rank as them-
selves, is reported, in their favour or to their discredit,
by friends and enemies, for foar centuries. ^' If a man
be educated,^' says Celsus in mockery, " let him keep
clear of us Christians; we want no men of wisdom, no
men of sense. We account all such as evil. No ; but, if
there be one who is inexperienced, or stupid, or untaught,
or a fool, let him come with good heart." " They are
weavers," he says elsewhere, " shoemakers, fullers, illi-
terate, clowns." "Fools, low-born fellows," says Trypho.
"The greater part of you," says CaBcilius, "are worn
with want, cold, toil, and famine; men collected from
the lowest dregs of the people; ignorant, credulous
* On the subjects which follow, vide Lami, Be Eruditione Aposto-
lorum ; Mamachius, Origines Christ. ; Ruinart, Act. Mart. ,- Lardner
Credibility, &c. ; Fleury, Eceles. Hist. ; Kortliolt, Calumn. Papan. ; and
Le Morib. Chritt., &c.
H h 2
468 Inference and Assent in Religion.
women ;" " unpolished, boors, illiterate, ignorant even
of the sordid arts of life ; they do not understand even
civil matters, how can they understand divine ? " " They
have left their tongs, mallets, and anvils, to preach
about the things of heaven," says Libanius. " They
deceive women, servants, and slaves,'^ says Julian. The
author of Philopatris speaks of them as " poor creatures,
blocks, withered old fellows, men of downcast and pale
visages." As to their religion, it had the reputation
popularly, according to various Fathers, of being an
anile superstition, the discovery of old women, a joke,
a madness, an infatuation, an absurdity, a fanaticism.
The Fathers themselves conJ&rm these statements, so
far as they relate to the insignificance and ignorance of
their brethren. Athenagoras speaks of the virtue of their
" ignorant men, mechanics, and old women." " They are
gathered," says St. Jerome, " not from the Academy or
Lyceum, but from the low populace." " They are white-
smiths, servants, farm-labourers, woodmen, men of
sordid trades, beggars," says Theodoret. "We are
engaged in the farm, in the market, at the baths, wine-
shops, stables, and fairs ; as seamen, as soldiers, as
peasants, as dealers," says TertuUian. How came such
men to be converted ? and, being converted, how came
such men to overturn the world ? Yet they went forth
from the first, " conquering and to conquer."
The first manifestation of their formidable numbers is
made just about the time when St. Peter and St. Paul
sutfered martyrdom, and was the cause of a terrible per-
secution. We have the account of it in Tacitus. "Nero,"
he says, "to put an end to the common talk [that Home
Revealed Religion. 469
had been set on fire by His order], imputed it to others,
visiting with a refinement of punishment those detestable
criminals who went by the name of Christians. The
author of that denomination was Christus, who had been
executed in Tiberius's time by the procurator, Pontius
Pilate. The pestilent superstition, checked for a while,
burst out again, not only throughout Judea, the first
seat of the evil, but even throughout Rome, the centre
both of confluence and outbreak of all that is atrocious
and disgraceful from every quarter. First were arrested
those who made no secret of their sect; and by this clue
a vast multitude of others, convicted not so much of
firing the city, as of hatred to the human race. Mockery
was added to death ; clad in skins of beasts, they were
torn to pieces by dogs ; they were nailed up to crosses ;
they were made inflammable, so that, when day failed,
they might serve as lights. Hence, guilty as they
were, and deserving of exemplary punishment, they
excited compassion, as being destroyed, not for the
public welfare, but from the cruelty of one man."
The two Apostles suffered, and a silence follows of a
whole generation. At the end of thirty or forty years,
Pliny, the friend of Trajan, as well as of Tacitus, is sent
as that Emperor's Propraetor into Bithynia, and is
startled and perplexed by the number, influence, and
pertinacity of the Christians whom he finds there, and
in the neighbouring province of Pontus. He has the
opportunity of being far more fair to them than his
friend the historian. He writes to Trajan to know
how he ought to deal with them, and I will quote some
portions of his letter.
470 hiference and Assent in Religion.
He says lie does not know how to proceed with them,
as their religion has not received toleration from the
state. He never was present at any trial of them ; he
doubted whether the children among them, as well as
grown people, ought to be accounted as culprits; whether
recantation would set matters right, or whether they
incurred punishment all the same ; whether they were
to be punished, merely because Christians, even though
no definite crime was proved against them. His way
had been to examine them, and put questions to them ;
if they confessed the charge, he gave them one or two
chances, threatening them with punishment; then, if
they persisted, he gave orders for their execution.
"• For," he argues, " I felt no doubt that, whatever
might be the character of their opinions, stubborn and
inflexible obstinacy deserved punishment. Others
there were of a like infatuation, whom, being citizens, I
sent to Rome."
Some satisfied him ; they repeated after him an invo-
cation to the gods, and ofiered wine and incense to the
Emperor's image, and in addition, cursed the name of
Christ. " Accordingly," he says, '' I let them go ; for
I am told nothing can compel a real Christian to do
any of these things." There were others, too, who
sacrificed ; who had been Christians, some of them for
as many as twenty years.
Then he is curious to know something more definite
about them. " This, the informers told me, was the
whole of their crime or mistake, that they were accus-
tomed to assemble on a stated day before dawn, and to
say together a hymn to Christ as a god, and to bind
Revealed Religion. 471
themselves by an oath [sacramento] (not to any crime,
but on the contrary) to keep from theft, robbery, adul-
tery, breach of promise, and making free with deposits.
After this they used to separate, and then to meet again
for a meal, which was social and harmless. However,
they left even that off, after my Edict against their
meeting,"
This information led him to put to the torture two
maid-servants, " who were called ministers," in order
to find out what was true, what was false in it ; but he
says he could make out nothing, except a depraved and
excessive superstition. This is what led him to consult
the Emperor, ^^ especially because of the number who
were implicated in it ; for these are, or are likely to be,
many, of all ages, nay, of both sexes. For the con-
tagion of this superstition has spread, not only in the
cities, but about the villages and the open country."
He adds that already there was some improvement.
" The almost forsaken temples begin to be filled again,
and the sacred solemnities after a long intermission are
revived. Victims, too, are again on sale, purchasers
having been most rare to find."
The salient points in this account are these, that, at
the end of one generation from the Apostles, nay,
almost in the lifetime of St. John, Christians had so
widely spread in a large district of Asia, as nearly to
suppress the Pagan religions there ; that they were
people of exemplary lives; that they had a name for
invincible fidelity to their religion ; that no threats or
sufferings could make them deny it ; and that their
only tangible characteristic was the worship of our Lord.
472 Inference and Assent in Religion.
This was at the beginning of the second century ;
not a great many years after, we have another account
of the Christian body, from an anonymous Greek Chris-
tian, in a letter to a friend whom he was anxious to
convert. It is far too long to quote, and difficult to
compress ; but a few sentences will show how strikingly
it agrees with the account of the heathen Pliny, espe-
cially in two points, — first, in the numbers of the
Christians, secondly, on devotion to our Lord as the
vivifying principle of their association.
" Christians," says the writer, " differ not from other
men in country, or speech, or customs. They do not
live in cities of their own, or speak in any peculiar
dialect, or adopt any strange modes of living. They
inhabit their native countries, but as sojourners ; they
take their part in all burdens, as if citizens, and in all
suflierings, as if they were strangers. In fpreign coun-
tries they recognize a home, and in every home they
see a foreign country. They marry like other men, but
do not disown their children. They obey the established
laws, but they go beyond them in the tenor of their lives.
They love all men, and are persecuted by all ; they are
not known, and they are condemned ; they are poor, and
make many rich : they are dishonoured, yet in dishonour
they are glorified ; they are slandered, and they are
cleared ; they are called names, and they bless. By the
Jews they are assailed as aliens, by the Greeks they
are persecuted, nor can they who hate them say why,
" Christians are in the world, as the soul in the body.
The soul pervades the limbs of the body, and Christians
the cities of the world. The flesh hates the soul, and
Revealed Religion. 473
wars against it, though suffering no wrong from it ; and
the world hates Christians. The soul loves the flesh
that hates it, and Christians love their enemies. Their
tradition is not an earthly invention, nor is it a mortal
thought which they so carefully guard, nor a dispensa-
tion of human mysteries which is committed to their
charge ; but God Himself, the Omnipotent and Invisible
Creator, has from heaven established among men His
Truth and His Word, the Holy and Incomprehensible,
and has deeply fixed the same in their hearts ; not, as
might be expected, sending any servant, angel, or prince,
or administrator of things earthly or heavenly, but the
very Artificer and Demiurge of the Universe. Him God
hath sent to man, not to inflict terror, but in clemency
and gentleness, as a King sending a King who was His
Son; He sent Him as God to men, to save them. He
bated not, nor rejected us, nor remembered our guilt,
but showed Himself long-suffering, and, in His own
words, bore our sins. He gave His own Son as a ran-
som for us, the just for the unjust. For what other
thing, except His Righteousness, could cover our guilt ?
In whom was it possible for us, lawless sinners, to find
justification, save in the Son of God alone? sweet
interchange ! heavenly workmanship past finding
out ! benefits exceeding expectation ! Sending, then,
a Saviour, who is able to save those who of themselves
are incapable of salvation. He has willed that we should
regard Him as our Guardian, Father, Teacher, Counsellor,
Physician ; our Mind, Light, Honour, Glory, Strength,
and Life.''*
* Ep. ad Diogneb.
474 Inference and Assent in Religion.
The writing from which I have been quoting is of the
early part of the second century. Twenty or thirty
years after it St, Justin Martyr speaks as strongly of
the spread of the new Eeligion : " There is not any one
race of men/' he says, " barbarian or Greek, nay, of
those who live in waggons, or who are Nomads, or
Shepherds in tents, among whom prayers and eucharists
are not offered to the Father and Maker of the Universe,
through the name of the crucified Jesus."
Towards the end of the century, Clement : — " The
word of our Master did not remain in Judea, as philo-
sophy remained in Greece, but has been poured out
over the whole world, persuading Greeks and Barbarians
alike, race by race, village by village, every city, whole
houses, and hearers one by one, nay, not a few of the
philosophers themselves."
And Tertullian, at the very close of it, could in his
Apologia even proceed to threaten the Roman Govern-
ment : — " We are a people of yesterday," he says ;
*' and yet we have filled every place belonging to you,
cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very
camp, your tribes, companies, palaces, senate, forum.
We leave you your temples only. We can count your
armies, and oitr numbers in a single province will be
greater. In what war with you should we not be
sufficient and ready, even though unequal in numbers,
who so willingly are put to death, if it were not in this
Religion of ours more lawful to be slain than to slay ?"
Once more, let us hear the great Origen, in the
early part of the next century : — " In all Greece and
in all barbarous races within our world, there are tens
Revealed Religion. 475
of thousands who have left their national laws and cus-
tomary gods for the law of Moses and the word of Jesus
Christ; though to adhere to that law is to incur the
hatred of idolaters, and the risk of death besides to
have embraced that word. And considering how, in
so few years, in spite of the attacks made on us, to
the loss of life or property, and with no great store
of teachers, the preaching of that word has found its
way into every part of the world, so that Greek and
barbarians, wise and unwise, adhere to the religion of
Jesus, doubtless it is a work greater than any work of
man."
We need no proof to assure us that this steady and
rapid growth of Christianity was a phenomenon which
startled its contemporaries, as much as it excites the
curiosity of philosophic historians now ; and they too
had their own ways then of accounting for it, different
indeed from Gibbon^s, but quite as pertinent, though
less elaborate. These were principally two, both lead-
ing them to persecute it, — the obstinacy of the Chris-
tians and their magical powers, of which the former
was the explanation adopted by educated minds, and
the latter chiefly by the populace.
As to the former, from first to last, men in power
magisterially reprobate the senseless obstinacy of the
members of the new sect, as their characteristic offence.
Pliny, as we have seen, found it to be their only fault,
but one sufficient to merit capital punishment. The
Emperor Marcus seems to consider obstinacy the ulti-
mate motive-cause to which their unnatural conduct
was traceable. After speaking of the soul, as *' ready.
47^ Inference and Assent in Religion.
if it must now be separated from the body, to be extin-
guished, or dissolved, or to remain with it \' he adds,
" but the i-eadiness must come of its own judgment, not
from simple perverseness, as in the case of Christians,
but with coiisiderateness, with gravity, and without
theatrical effect, so as to be persuasive.'^ And Diocletian,
in his Edict of persecution, professes it to be his
" earnest aim to punish the depraved persistence of
those most wicked men/^
As to the latter charge, their founder, it was said, had
gained a knowledge of magic in Egypt, and had left
behind him in his sacred books the secrets of the art.
Suetonius himself speaks of them as " men of a magical
superstition;'^ and Celsus accuses them of "incantations
in the name of demons." The officer who had custody
of St. Perpetua, feared her escape from prison " by
magical incantations.^' When St. Tiburtius had walked
barefoot on hot coals, his judge cried out that Christ
had taught him magic. St, Anastasia was thrown into
prison as dealing in poisons ; the populace called out
against St. Agnes, " Away with the witch ! away
with the sorceress ! " When St. Bonosus and St.
Maximilian bore the burning pitch without shrink-
ing, Jews and heathen cried out, " Those wizards and
sorcerers ! " "What new delusion," says the magistrate
concerning St. Romanus, in the Hymn of Prudentius,
*^ has brought in these sophists who deny the worship
of the Gods ? how doth this chief sorcerer mock us,
skilled by his Thessalian charm to laugh at puuish-
ment?"*
' Essay on Developnieut of Doctrine, ch. iv. § 1.
Revealed Religion. 477
It is indeed difficult to enter into the feelings of
irritation and fear, of contempt and amazement, which
were excited, whether in the town populace or in the
magistrates in the presence of conduct so novel, so un-
varying, so absolutely beyond their comprehension.
The very young and the very old, the child, the youth
in the heyday of his passions, the sober man of middle
age, maidens and mothers of families, boors and slaves
as well as philosophers and nobles, solitary confessors
and companies of men and women, — all these were seen
equally to defy the powers of darkness to do their worst.
In this strange encounter it became a point of honour
with the Roman to bi'eak the determination of his
victim, and it was the triumph of faith when his most
savage expedients for that purpose were found to be in
vain. The martyrs shrank from suffering like other
men, but such natural shrinking was incommensurable
with apostasy. No intensity of torture had any means
of affecting what was a mental conviction ; and the
sovereign Thought in which they had lived was their
adequate support and consolation in their death. To
them the prospect of wounds and loss of limbs was not
more terrible than it is to the combatant of this world.
They faced the implements of torture as the soldier
takes his post before the enemy^s battery. They cheered
and ran forward to meet his attack, and as it were
dared him, if he would, to destroy the numbers who
kept closing up the foremost rank, as their comrades
who had filled it fell. And when Rome at last found
she had to deal with a host of Scaevolas, then the
proudest of earthly sovereignties, arrayed in the com-
47^ Inference and Assent in Religion.
pleteness of her material resources, humbled herself
before a power which was founded on a mere sense of
the unseen.
In the colloquy of the aged Ignatius, the disciple of
the Apostles, with the Emperor Trajan, we have a sort of
type of what went on for three, or rather four centuries.
He was sent all the way from Antioch to Rome to be
devoured by the beasts in the amphitheatre. As he
travelled, he wrote letters to various Christian Churches,
and among others to his Roman brethren, among whom
he was to suffer. Let us see whether, as I have said, the
Image of that Divine King, who had been promised from
the beginning, was not the living principle of his obstinate
resolve. The old man is almost fierce in his determina-
tion to be martyred. " May those beasts," he says to
his brethren, " be my gain, which are in readiness for
me ! I will provoke and coax them to devour me quickly,
and not to be afraid of me, as they are of some whom
they will not touch. Should they be unwilling, I will
compel them. Bear with me ; I know what is my gain.
Now I begin to be a disciple. Of nothing of things
visible or invisible am I ambitious, save to gain Christ.
Whether it is fire or the cross, the assault of wild beasts,
the wrenching of my bones, the crunching of my limbs,
the crushing of my whole body, let the tortures of the
devil all assail me, if I do but gain Christ Jesus.'* Else-
where in the same Epistle he says, " I write to you, still
alive, but longing to die. My Love is crucified ! I have
no taste for perishable food. I long for God's Bread,
heavenly Bread, Bread of life, which is Flesh of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. I long for God's draught, His
Revealed Religion. 479
Blood, which is Love without corruption, and Life for
evermore." It is said that, when he came into the
presence of Trajan, the latter cried out, " Who are you,
poor devil, who are so eager to transgress our rules ?"
" That is no name," he answered, " for Theophorus."
" Who is Theophorus ?" asked the Emperor. " He who
bears Christ in his breast." In the Apostle's words,
already cited, he had " Christ in him, the hope of glory."
All this may be called enthusiasm; but enthusiasm
affords a much more adequate explanation of the con-
fessorship of an old man, than do Gibbon^s five reasons.
Instances of the same ardent spirit, and of the living
faith on which it was founded, are to be found wherever
we open the Acta Marty rum. In the outbreak at Smyrna,
in the middle of the second century, amid tortures which
even moved the heathen bystanders to compassion,
the sufferers were conspicuous for their serene calmness.
^* They made it evident to us all," says the Epistle of
the Church, ^'that in the midst of those sufferings
they were absent from the body, or rather, that the
Lord stood by them, and walked in the midst of them."
At that time Polycarp, the familiar friend of St. John,
and a contemporary of Ignatius, suffered in his extreme
old age. When, before his sentence, the Proconsul
bade him " swear by the fortunes of Csesar, and have
done with Christ," his answer betrayed that intimate
devotion to the self-same Idea, which had been the
inward life of Ignatius. " Eighty and six years," he
answered, " have I been His servant, and He has never
wronged me, but ever has preserved me ; and how can
I blaspheme my King and my Saviour ? " When they
4^0 Infe7'ence a7id Assent in Religion.
would have fastened him to the stake, he said, "Let
alone ; He who gives me to bear the fire, will give me
also to stand firm upon the pyre without your nails/'
Christians felt it as an acceptable service to Him who
loved them, to confess with courage and to suffer with
dignity. In this chivalrous spirit, as it may be called,
they met the words and deeds of their persecutors, as
the children of men return bitterness for bitterness, and
blow for blow. " What soldier," says Minucius, with a
reference to the invisible Presence of our Lord, ** does
not challenge danger more daringly under the eye of
his commander ? '' In that same outbreak at Smyrna,
when the Proconsul urged the young Germanicus to
have mercy on himself and on his youth, to the astonish-
ment of the populace he provoked a wild beast to fall
upon him. In like manner, St. Justin tells us of Lucius,
who, when he saw a Christian sent off to suffer, at once
remonstrated sharply with the judge, and was sent off
to execution with him ; and then another presented
himself, and was sent off also. When the Christians
were thrown into prison, in the fierce persecution at
Lyons, Yettius Epagathus, a youth of distinction who
had given himself to an ascetic life, could not bear the
sight of the sufferings of his brethren, and asked leave
to plead their cause. The only answer he got was to
be sent off the first to die. What the contemporai-y
account sees in his conduct is, not that he was zealous
for his brethren, though zealous he was, nor that he
believed in miracles, though he doubtless did believe ;
but that he " was a gracious disciple of Christ, following
the Lamb whithersoever He went."
Revealed Religion. 481
In that memorable persecution, when Blandina, a
slave, was seized for confessorship, her mistress and her
fellow- Christians dreaded lest, from her delicate make,
she should give way under the torments ; but she even
tired out her tormentors. It was a refreshment and relief
to her to cry out amid her pains, " I am a Christian."
They remanded her to prison, and then brought her out
for fresh suffering a second day and a third. On the
last day she saw a boy of fifteen brought into the am-
phitheatre for death; she feared for him, as others had
feared for her ; but he too went through his trial gene-
rously, and went to God before her. Her last sufferings
were to be placed in the notorious red-hot chair, and
then to be exposed in a net to a wild bull ; they finished
by cutting her throat. Sanctus, too, when the burning
plates of brass were placed on his limbs, all through his
torments did but say, '^I am a Christian, ^^ and stood
erect and firm, " bathed and strengthened," say his
brethren who write the account, " in the heavenly well
of living water which flows from the breast of Christ,''
or, as they say elsewhere of all the martyrs, " refreshed
with the joy of martyrdom, the hope of blessedness, love
towards Christ, and the spirit of God the Father."
How clearly do we see all through this narrative what
it was which nerved them for the combat ! If they love
their brethren, it is in the fellowship of their Lord ; if
they look for heaven, it is because He is the Light of it.
Epipodius, a youth of gentle nurture, when struck by
the Prefect on the mouth, while blood flowed from it,
cried out, " I confess that Jesus Christ is God, together
with the Father and the Holy Ghost." Symphorian, of
I i
482 Inference and Assent in Religion.
Autun, also a youth, and of noble birth, when told to
adore an idol, answered, " Give me leave, and I will
hammer it to pieces/^ When Leonidas, the father of the
young Origen, was in prison for his faith, the boy, then
seventeen, burned to share his martyrdom, and his mother
had to hide his clothes to prevent him from executing
his purpose. Afterwards he attended the confessors in
prison, stood by them at the tribunal, and gave them
the kiss of peace when they were led out to suffer, and
this, in spite of being several times apprehended and put
upon the rack. Also in Alexandria, the beautiful slave,
Potamieena, when about to be stripped in order to be
thrown into the cauldron of hot pitch, said to the Pre-
fect, " I pray you rather let me be dipped down slowly
into it with my clothes on, and you shall see with what
patience I am gifted by Him of whom you are ignorant,
Jesus Christ. ^^ When the populace in the same city
had beaten out the aged Apollonia's teeth, and lit a
fire to burn her, unless she would blaspheme, she
leaped into the fire herself, and so gained her crown.
When Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, was led to martyrdom,
his deacon, Laurence, followed him weeping and com-
plaining, " my father, whither goest thou without
thy son ? ^' And when his own turn came, three days
afterwards, and he was put upon the gridiron, after a
while he said to the Prefect, " Turn me ; this side is
done." Whence came this tremendous spirit, scaring,
nay, offending, the fastidious criticism of our delicate
days ? Does Gibbon think to sound the depths of the
eternal ocean with the tape and measuring-rod of his
merely literary philosophy ?
Revealed Religion. 483
When Barulas, a child of seven years old, was
scourged to blood for repeating", his catechism before
the heathen judge — viz. " There is but one God, and
Jesus Christ is true God " — his mother encouraged
him to persevere, chiding him for asking for some
drink. At Merida, a girl of noble family, of the age of
twelve, presented herself before the tribunal, and over-
turned the idols. She was scourged and burned with
torches ; she neither shed a tear, nor showed other
signs of suffering. When the fire reached her face,
she opened her mouth to receive it, and was suffocated.
At Cassarea, a girl, under eighteen, went boldly to ask
the prayers of some Christians who were in chains
before the Pra3torium. She was seized at once, and
her sides torn open with the iron rakes, preserving
the while a bright and joyous countenance. Peter,
Dorotheus, Gorgonius, were boys of the imperial bed-
chamber ; they were highly in favour with their masters,
and were Christians. They too suffered dreadful tor-
ments, dying under them, without a shadow of waver-
ing. Call such conduct madness, if you will, or magic :
but do not mock us by ascribing it in such mere chil-
dren to simple desii*e of immortality, or to any eccle-
siastical organization.
When the persecution raged in Asia, a vast multitude
of Christians presented themselves before the Proconsul,
challenging him to proceed against them. "Poor
wretches ! " half in contempt and half in affright, he
answered, ^' if you must die, cannot you find ropes or
precipices for the purpose ? " At Utica, a hundred and
fifty Christians of both sexes and all ages were martyrs
I i 2
484 Inference and Assent in Religion.
in one company. They are said to have been told to
burn incense to an idol, or they should be thrown into
a pit of burning lime ; they without hesitation leapt
into it. In Egypt a hundred and twenty confessors,
after having sustained the loss of eyes or of feet, en-
dured to linger out their lives in the mines of Palestine
and Cilicia. In the last persecution, according to the
testimony of the grave Eusebius, a contemporary, the
slaughter of men, women, and children, went on by
twenties, sixties, hundreds, till the instruments of exe-
cution were worn out, and the executioners could kill
no more. Yet he tells us, as an eye-witness, that, as
soon as any Christians were condemned, others ran
from all parts, and surrounded the tribunals, confessing
the faith, and joyfully receiving their condemnation,
and singing songs of thanksgiving and triumph to the
last.
Thus was the Roman power overcome. Thus did
the Seed of Abraham, and the Expectation of the
Gentiles, the meek Son of man, " take to Himself His
great power and reign " in the hearts of His people, in
the public theatre of the world. The mode in which
the primeval prophecy was fulfilled is as marvellous, as
the prophecy itself is clear and bold.
" So may all Thy enemies perish, Lord ; but let
them that love Thee shine, as the sun shineth in his
rising ! "
I will add the memorable words of the two great
Apologists of the period : —
Revealed Religion. 485
" Your cruelty/' says Tertullian, " fhougli eacli act
be more refined than tlie last, doth profit you nothing.
To our sect it is rather an inducement. We grow up
in greater numbers, as often as you cut us down. The
blood of the martyrs is their seed for the harvest.''
Origen even uses the language of prophecy. To the
objection of Celsus that Christianity from its principles
would, if let alone, open the whole empire to the irruption
of the barbarians, and the utter ruin of civilization, he
replies, '' If all Romans are such as we, then too the
barbarians will draw near to the Word of God, and will
become the most observant of the Law. And every
•worship shall come to naught, and that of the Christians
alone obtain the mastery, for the Word is continually
gaining possession of more and more souls."
One additional remark : — It was fitting that those
mixed unlettered multitudes, who for three centuries
had suffered and triumphed by virtue of the inward
Vision of their Divine Lord, should be selected, as we
know they were, in the fourth, to be the special champions
of His Divinity and the victorious foes of its impugners,
at a time when the civil power, which had found them
too strong for its arms, attempted, by means of a por-
tentous heresy in the high places of the Church, to rob
them of that Truth which had all along been the prin-
ciple of their strength.
10.
I have been forestalling all along the thought with
which I shall close these considerations on the subject
of Christianity ; and necessarily forestalling it, because
486 Inference and Assent in Religion.
it properly comes first, though the course which my
argument has taken has not allowed me to introduce it
in its natural place. Revelation begins where Natural
Religion fails. The Religion of Nature is a mere
inchoatioUj and needs a complement, — it can have but
one complement, and that very complement is Chris-
tianity.
Natural Religion is based upon the sense of sin ; it
recognizes the disease, but it cannot find, it does but look
out for the remedy. That remedy, both for guilt and for
moral impotence, is found in the central doctrine of Re-
velation, the Mediation of Christ. I need not go into
a subject so familiar to all men in a Christian country.
Thus it IS tbat Christianity is the fulfilment of the
promise made to Abraham, and of the Mosaic revelations ;
this is how it has been able from the first to occupy the
world and gain a hold on every class of human society
to which its preachers reached ; this is why the Roman
power and the multitude of religions which it embraced
could not stand against it ; this is the secret of its sus-
tained energy, and its never-flagging martyrdoms ; this
is how at present it is so mysteriously potent, in spite of
the new and fearful adversaries which beset its path. It
has with it that gift of staunching and healing the one
deep wound of human nature, which avails more for its
success than a full encyclopedia of scientific knowledge
and a whole library of controversy, and therefore it must
last while human nature lasts. It is a living truth which
never can grow old.
Some persons speak of it as if it were a thing of his-
tory, with only indirect bearings upon modern times j I
Revealed Religion. 487
cannot allow that it is a mere historical religion. Cer-
tainly it has its foundations in past and glorious
memories, but its power is in the present. It is no
dreary matter of antiquarianism ; we do not contemplate
it in conclusions drawn from dumb documents and dead
Events, but by faith exercised in ever-living objects, and
by the appropriation and use of ever-recurring gifts.
Our communion with it is in the unseen, not in the
obsdlete. At this very day its rites and ordinances are
continually eliciting the active interposition of that Om-
nipotence in which the Religion long ago began. First
and above all is the Holy Mass, in which He who once
died for us upon the Cross, brings back and perpetuates,
by His literal presence in it, that one and the same
sacrifice which cannot be repeated. Next, there is the
actual entrance of Himself, soul and body, and divinity,
into the soul and body of every worshipper who comes
to Him for the gift, a privilege more intimate than if we
lived with Him during His long-past sojourn upon eai*th.
And then, moreover, there is His personal abidance in
our churches, raising earthly service into a foretaste of
heaven. Such is the profession of Christianity, and, I
repeat, its very divination of our needs is in itself a proof
that it is really the supply of them.
Upon the doctrines which I have mentioned as central
truths, others, as we all know, follow, which rule our per-
sonal conduct and course of life, and our social and civil
relations. The promised Deliverer, the Expectation of
the nations, has not done His work by halves. He
has given us Saints and Angels for our protection. He
has taught us how by our prayers and services to bene-
488 Inference and Assent in Religion.
fit our departed friends, and to keep up a memorial of
ourselves when we are gone. He has created a visible
hierarchy and a succession of sacraments, to be the
channels of His mercies, and the Crucifix secures the
thought of Him in every house and chamber. In all
these ways He brings Himself before us. I am not
here speaking of His gifts as gifts, but as memorials ;
not as what Christians know they convey, but in their
visible character ; and I say, that, as human nature itself
is still in life and action as much as ever it was, so He
too lives, to our imaginations, by His visible symbols,
as if He were on earth, with a practical efficacy which
even unbelievers cannot deny, so as to be the corrective
of that nature, and its strength day by day, — and that
this power of perpetuating His Image, being altogether
singular and special, and the prerogative of Him and
Him alone, is a grand evidence how well He fulfils to
this day that Sovereign Mission which, from the first
beginning of the world's history, has been in prophecy
assigned to Him.
I cannot better illustrate this argument than by re-
curring to a deep thought on the subject of Christianity,
which has before now attracted the notice of philosophez's
and preachers '^, as coming from the wonderful man who
swayed the destinies of Europe in the first years of this
century. It was an argument not unnatural in one who
had that special passion for human glory, which has
been the incentive of so many heroic careers and of so
many mighty revolutions in the history of the world.
In the solitude of his imprisonment, and in the view of
7 Fr. Lacordaire and M. Nicolas.
Revealed Religio7i. 489
death, he is said to have expressed himself to the
following effect : —
"\ have been accustomed to put before me the
examples of Alexander and Caesar, with the hope of
rivalling their exploits, and living in the minds of men
for ever. Yet, after all, in what sense does Cassar, in what
sense does Alexander live ? Who knows or cares any-
thing about them ? At best, nothing but their names is
known ; for who among the multitude of men, who hear
or who utter their names, really knows anything about
their lives or their deeds, or attaches to those names
any definite idea ? Nay, even their names do but flit up
and down the world like ghosts, mentioned only on
particular occasions, or from accidental associations.
Their chief home is the schoolroom ; they have a fore-
most place in boys^ grammars and exercise-books ; they
are splendid examples for themes ; they form writing-
copies. So low is heroic Alexander fallen, so low is
imperial Caesar, ' ut pueris placeant et declamatio fiant.'
" But, on the contrary " (he is reported to have con-
tinued), "there is just One Name in the whole world
that lives ; it is the Name of One who passed His
years in obscurity, and who died a malefactor^s death.
Eighteen hundred years have gone since that time,
but still it has its hold upon the human mind. It
has possessed the world, and it maintains possession.
Amid the most varied nations, under the most diver-
sified circumstances, in the most cultivated, in the
rudest races and intellects, in all classes of society, the
Owner of that great Name reigns. High and low, rich
and poor, acknowledge Him. Millions of souls are con-
490 Inference and Assent in Religion.
versing with Him, are venturing on His word, are look-
ing for His presence. Palaces, sumptuous, innumerable,
are raised to His honour ; His image, as in the hour of
His deepest humiliation, is triumphantly displayed in
the proud city, in the open country, in the corners of
streets, on the tops of mountains. It sanctifies the an-
cestral hall, the closet, and the bedchamber -, it is the
subject for the exercise of the highest genius in the
imitative arts. It is worn next the heart in life ; it is
held before the failing eyes in death. Here, then, is One
who v¬ a mere name, who is not a mere fiction, who
is a reality. He is dead and gone, but still He lives, —
lives as the living, energetic thought of successive
generations, as the awful motive-power of a thousand
great events. He has done without effort what others
with life-long struggles have not done. Can He be
less than Divine ? Who is He but the Creator Himself ;
who is sovereign over His own works, towards whom
our eyes and hearts turn instinctively, because He is
our Father and our God ? " *
Here I end my specimens, among the many which
might be given, of the arguments adducible for Chris-
tianity. I have dwelt upon them, in order to show how
I would apply the principles of this Essay to the proof
of its divine origin. Christianity is addressed, both as
regards its evidences and its contents, to minds which
are in the normal condition of human nature, as be-
lieving in God and in a future judgment. Such minds
it addresses both through the intellect and through the
imagination ; creating a certitude of its truth by argu-
' Occas. Serm., pp. 49 — 51.
Revealed Religion. 49 1
ments too various for enumeration, too personal and
deep for words, too powerful and concurrent for re-
futation. Nor need reason come first and faith, second
(though this is the logical order), but one and the same
teaching is in different aspects both object and proof,
and elicits one complex act both of inference and of
assent. It speaks to us one by one, and it is received
by us one by one, as the counterpart, so to say, of our-
selves, and is real as we are real.
In the sacred words of its Divine Author and Object
concerning Himself, " I am the Good Shepherd, and I
know Mine, and Mine know Me. My sheep hear My
voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I
give them everlasting life, and they shall never perish ;
and no man shall pluck them out of My hand."
NOTE I.
1. On the first publication of this volume, a Correspondent did
me the favour of marking for me a list of passages in Chilling-
worth's celebrated work, besides that which I had myself quoted,
in which the argument was more or less brought forward, on
which I have animadverted in ch. vii. § 2, p. 226. He did this
with the purpose of showing, that Chillingworth's meaning, when
carefully inquired into, would be found to be in substantial
agreement with the distinction I had myself made between in-
fallibility and certitude ; those inaccuracies of language into which
he fell, being necessarily involved in the argumentum ad homi'nem,
which he was urging upon his opponent, or being the accidental
result of the peculiar character of his intellect, which, while full
of ideati, was wanting in the calmness and caution which are con-
spicuous in Bishop Butler. Others more familiar with Chilling-
worth than I am must decide on this point ; but I can have no
indisposition to accept an explanation, which deprives controver-
sialists of this day of the authority of a vigorous and acute mind in
their use of an argument, which is certainly founded on a great
confusion of thought.
I subjoin the references with which my Correspondent has supplied
me : —
(1.) Passages tending to show an agi-eement of Chillingworth's
opinion on the distinction between certitude and infallibility
with that laid down in the foregoing essay : —
1. " Religion of Protestants," ch. ii. § 121 (vol. i. p. 243,
Oxf . ed. 1838), '' For may not a private man," &c.
2. Ibid. § 152 (p. 265). The last sentence, however, after
" when they thought they dreamt," is a fall into the
error which he had been exposing.
3. Ihid. § 160 (p. 275).
4. Ch. iii. § 26 (p. 332), " Neither is your argument," kc.
494 Note I.
5. I?nd. § 36 (p. 346).
6. Ibid. § 50 (p. 363), " That Abraham," &c.
7. Ch. V. § 63 (vol. ii. p. 215).
8. Ibid. § 107 (p. 265).
9. Ch. vii. § 13 (p. 452).
Vide also vol. i. pp. 115, 121, 196, 236, 242, 411.
(2.) Passages inconsistent with the above : —
1. Ch. ii. § 25 (vol. i. p. 177). A.n argumentum ad hominem.
2. Ibid. § 28 (p. 180).
3. Ibid. § 45 (p. 189). An argumentum ad hominem.
4. Ibid. § 149 (p. 263). An argumentujtt ad hominem.
6. Ibid. § 154 (p. 267). Quoted in the text, p. 226.
6. Ch. V. § 45 (vol. ii. p. 391). He is arguing on his
oppom?nt's principles.
2. Also, I have to express my obligation to another Corre-
spondent, who called my attention to a passage of Hooker
("Eccles. Pol." ii. 7) beginning "An earnest desire," &c., which
seemed to anticipate the doctrine of Locke about certitude. It
is so difficult to be sure of the meaning of a writer whose style
is so foreign to that of our own times, that I am shy of attempting
to turn this passage into categorical statements. Else, I should
ask, does not Hooker here assume the absolute certainty of the
inspiration and divine authority of Scripture, and believe its
teaching as the very truth unconditionally and without any
admixture of doubt ? Yet what had he but probable evidence as
a warrant for such a view of it ? Again, did he receive the
Athanasian Creed on any logical demonstration that its articles
were in Scripture ? Yet he felt himself able without any mis-
giving to say aloud in the congregation, "Which faith except every
one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish
everlastingly." In truth it is the happy inconsistency of his school
to be more orthodox in their conclusions than in their premisses ;
to be sceptics in their paper theories, and believers in their own
persons.
3. Also, a friend sends me word, as regards the controversy on
the various readings of Shakespeare to which I have referred
(supra, ch. viii. § 1, p. 271) in illustration of the shortcomings of
Formal Inference, that, since the date of the article in the magazine,
of which I have there availed myself, the verdict of critics has been
unfavourable to the authority and value of the Annotated Copy,
discovered twenty years ago. I may add, that, since my first edition,
Note II. 495
I have had the pleasure of reading Dr. Ingleby's interesting disser-
tation on the " Traces of the Authorship of the Works attributed to
Shakespeare."
NOTE II.
December, 1880.
As I am sending the last pages of the New Edition of this Essay
to the press, I avail myself of an opportunity which its subject
makes apposite, to explain a misunderstanding, as appearing in a
London daily print, of a statement of mine used in controversy,
which has elicited within the last few days a prompt and effective
defence from the kind zeal of Mr. Lilly. I should not think it
necessary to make any addition to what he has said so well, except
that it may be expected that what is a great mistake concerning me
should be set right under my own hand and in my own words.
It has been said of me that " Cardinal Newman has confined his
defence of his own creed to the proposition that it is the only
possible alternative to Atheism.'' I understand this to mean, that
I have given up, both in my religious convictions and my controver-
sial efforts, any thought of bringing arguments from reason to
bear upon the question of the truth of the Catholic faith, and that
I do but rely upon the threat and the consequent scare, that, unless
a man be a Catholic he ought to be an Atheist. And I consider it
to be said, not only that I use no argument in controversy in behalf
of my creed besides the threat of atheism as its alternative ; but
also that I have not even attempted to prove by argument the
reasonableness of that threat.
Now, what do I hold, and what do I not hold ? The present
volume supplies an answer to this question. Prom beginning to
end it is full of arguments, of which the scope is the truth of the
Catholic religion, yet no one of them introduces or depends upon
the alternative of Catholicity or Atheism ; how, then, can it be said
that that alternative is the only defence that I have proposed for my
creed ? The Essay begins with refuting the fallacies of those who
say that we cannot believe what we cannot understand. No appeal to
the argument from Atheism here. Incidentally and obiter reasons
496 Note II.
are given for saying that causation and law, as we find them in the
universe, bespeak an infinite Creator; still no argtimentum ah
atheismo. This portion of the work finished, I proceed to justify
certitude as exercised upon a cumulation of proofs, short of demon-
stration separately ; nothing about atheism. Then I go to a direct
proof of theism (which, indeed, has been in a great measure antici-
pated in a former chapter) as a conclusion drawn from three depart-
ments of phenomena ; still the threat of atheism is away. I pass
on to the proof of Christianity; and where does the threat of
atheism come in here ? I begin it with prophecy ; then I proceed
to the coincident testimony of the two covenants, and thence to the
overpowering argument from the testimony borne to the divinity
of Catholicism by the bravery and eudurance of the primitive
martyrs. And there 1 end.
Nor is this my only argumentative work in defence of my
•' creed " which I have given to the public. I have published an
" Essay on Development of Doctrine," " Theological Tracts," " A
Letter to Dr. Puse}-," " A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk," works
all more or less controversial, all defences of the Catholic creed ;
does the very word " atheism '' occur in any one of them ?
So much, then, on what I do not hold and have not said : — now
as to what I have avowed and do adhere to. This brings me at
once to the saying to which I have committed myself in "Apologia,"
page 198, viz., " that there is no medium, in true philosophy,
between Atheism and Catholicity, and that a perfectly consistent
mind, under those circumstances in which it finds itself here below,
must embrace either the one or the other;" — a saying which doubt-
less my critic has in mind, and which, I am aware, has been before
now a difficulty with readers whom I should be sorry to perplex.
Now, if we found it asserted in Butler's Analogy that there is
no consistent standing or logical medium between the acceptance of
the Gospel and the denial of a Moral Governor, for the same difficul-
ties can be brought against both beliefs, and if they are fatal as
against Christianity, they are fatal against natural religion, should
we not have understood what was meant? It might be taken,
indeed, as a threat against denying Christianity, but would it not
have an argumentative basis and meaning, and would such an in-
terpretation be fair ? It would be quite fair indeed to say, as some
have said, " It drives me the wrong way," and its advocates could
Note II. 497
only reply," What is one man's meat is another man's poison," but
would it be fair to accuse Butler of putting aside all scientific
reasoning for a threat ? No one would say, " Butler confines the
defence of his own creed to the proposition that it is the only
possible alternative of the denial of the Moral Law," putting aside
as nothing to the purpose his Sermons at the Rolls' Chapel. Yet
what hare I said more dangerous or more obscure than Butler's
argument? Could he be said to destroy all logical proof of a God,
because he paralleled the difficulties of grace to the difficulties of
nature ? Nay, even should he go on to say with me, " if on account
of difficulties we give up the gospel, then on account of parallel
difficulties we must give up nature, or there is no standing ground
between putting up with the one trial of faith, and putting up with
the otlier ? "
Nor is this all. It seems insistence on this analogy between tbe
mysteries of nature and those of grace is my sole argument for
the truth of my creed. How can this be, from the very nature of
the case ? The argument from Analogy is mainly negative, but
argument which tends to prove must be positive. Butler does not
prove Christianity to be true by his famous argument, but he
removes a great obstacle of a prima facie character to listening to
the proofs of Christianity. It is like the trenches soldiers dig to
shield them when they propose to storm a fort. No one would say
that such trenches dispense with soldiers. So far, then, from " con-
fining " m5'self to the argument from Analogy in behalf of my
creed, I absolutely imply the presence and the use of independent
arguments, positive arguments, by the fact of using what is mainly
a negative one. And that I was quite aware of this, and acted upon
it, the following passage from my Sermon on Mysteries shows
beyond mistake : —
" If I must submit my reason to mysteries, it is not much matter
whether it is a mystery more or a mysterj- less ; the main difficulty
is to believe at all ; the main difficulty for an inquirer is firmly to
hold that there is a living God, in spite of the darkness which sur-
rounds Him, the Creator, Witness, and Judge of m^n. When
once the mind is broken in, as it must be, to the belief of a Power
above it, when once it understands that it is not itself the measure
of all things in heaven and earth, it will have little difficulty in
going forward. I do not say it will, or can, go on to other truths
K k
498 Note II.
withovt conmrtion ; I do not say it ouffht to believe the Catholic
Faith without grounds and motives ; but I say that, when once it
believes in God, the great obstacle to faith has been taken away, a
proud, self-sufficient spirit, &c.'' — (Discourses.)
I must somewhat enlarge what I have last been saying, but it is
in order to increase the force and fulness of this explanation. There
is a certain sense in which Analogy may be said to supply a positive
argument, though it is not its primary and direct purpose. The
coincidence of two witnesses independently giving the same account
of a transaction is an argument for its truth ; the likeness of two
effects argues one cause for both. The fact of Mediation so promi-
nent in Scripture and in the world, as Butler illustrates it, is a
positive argument that the God of Scripture is the God of the world.
This is the immediate sense in which I speak in the " Apologia "
of the objective matter of Religion, Natural and Revealed, and the
character of the evidence, and the legitimate position and exercise of
the intellect relatively towards it. Religion has, as such, certain
definite belongings and surroundings, and it calls for what Aristotle
would call a TifTraibevfievos investigator, and a process of investi-
gation siii similis. This peculiarity I first found in the histor}' of
doctrinal development; in the first instance it had presented itself to
me as a mode of accounting for a difficulty, viz. for what are called
" the Variations of Popery," but next I found it a law, which was
instanced in the successive developments through which revealed
truth has passed. And then I reflected that a law implied a law-
giver, and that so orderlj' and majestic a growth of doctrine in the
Catholic Church, contrasted with the deadness and helplessness, or
the vague changes and contradictions in the teaching of other
religious bodies, argued a spiritual Presence in Rome, which was
nowhere else, and which constituted a presumption that Rome was
right ; if the doctrine of the Eucharist was not from heaven, why
should the doctrine of Original Sin ? If the Athanasian Creed was
from heaven, why not the Creed of Pope Pius ? This was a use of
Analogy beside and beyond Butler's use of it ; and then, when I
had recognized its force in the development of doctrine, 1 was led to
apply it to the Evidences of Religion, and in this sense I came to
say what I have said in the "Apologia." " There is no medium in
true philosophy," "to a perfectly consistent mind," "between
Atheism and Catholicity."
Note II. 499
The multitude of men indeed are not consistent, logical, or
thorough ; they ohey no law in the course of their religious views ;
and while they cannot reason without premisses, and premisses
demand first principles, and first principles must ultimately be (in
one shape or other) assumptions, they do not recognize what this
involves, and are set down at this or that point in the ascending or
descending scale of thought, according as their knowledge of facts,
prejudices, education, domestic ties, social position, and opportunities
for inquiry determine; but nevertheless there is a certain ethical
character, one and the same, a system of first principles, sentiments
and tastes, a mode of viewing the question and of arguing, which is
formally and normally, naturally and divinely, the organum in-
vest iff andi given us for gaining religious truth, and which would lead
the mind by an infallible succession from the rejection of atheism
to theism, and from theism to Christianity, and from Christianity
to Evangelical Religion, and from these to Catholicity, And again
when a Catholic is seriously wanting in this system of thought, we
cannot be surprised if he leaves the Catholic Church, and then in
due time gives up religion altogether. I will add, that a main
reason for my writing this Essay on Assent, to which I am adding
th« last words, was, as far as I could, to describe the organum
investigandi which I thought the true one, and thereby to illustrate
and explain the saying in the "Apologia" which has been the sub-
ject of this Note.
I have only one remark more before concluding. I have said of
course there was a descending as well as an ascending course of
inquiry and of faith. However, speaking in my " Apologia '* of
Evidences, and, following the lead of what I have said there about
doctrinal development, I have mainly in view the ascending scale,
not the descending. I have meant to say "I am a Catholic, for the
reason that I am not an Atheist." This makes the misintei-preta-
tion of my words which I am exposing the more striking, for it
paraphrases me into a threat and nothing else, viz. " If 3'ou are
not a Catholic, you must be an Atheist, and will go to hell." Mr.
Lilly, in his letter in my defence sees this, and most happily adopts
the positive interpretation which is the true one.
This explanation, also, is an answer to some good, but easily
frightened men, who have fancied that I was denying that the
Being of a God was a natural truth, because I said that to deny
K k 2
500 Note II.
revelation was the way to deny natural religion. I have but argued
that the same sophistry which denies the one may deny the other.
That the ascending scale of my abstract alternative has been the
prominent idea in my mind, may be argued from the following
passage of a Lecture delivered many years before the " Apologia :" —
"A Protestant is already reaching forward to the whole truth,
from the very, circumstance of his really grasping any part of it.
So strongly do I feel this, that I account it no paradox to say that,
let a man but master the one doctrine of the Being of a God, let him
really and truly, and not in words only, or by inherited profession,
or in the conclusions of reason, but by a direct apprehension, be a
Monotheist," (that is, with what in the foregoing Essay I have
called a " real assent " as following upon " Inference," and acting
as a fresh start) and he is already three-fourths of the way towards
Catholicism."
I end by placing before the reader Mr. Lilly's apposite Letter,
dated Nov. 18.
" SiE, — I observe in your issue of this evening a statement against
which I must beg your permission to protest in the strongest
manner as a most serious, although, I am quite sure, an unin-
tentional, misrepresentation of my deeply venerated friend Cardinal
Newman. The statement is that 'he has confined his defence
of his own creed to the proposition that it is the only possible
alternative to atheism.' It certainly is true that Cardinal
Newman has said, ' There is no medium, in true philosophy,
between Atheism and Catholicism ' (' Apologia,' p. 198, Third
Edition) ; and it as certainly is not true that he confines his
defence of his creed to this i)roposition. He expressly recognizes
' the formal proofs on which the being of a God rests ' (they may
be seen in any text-book of Catholic theology) as affording * irre-
fragable demonstration' ('Discourses to Mixed Congregations,'
p. 262, Fourth Edition) ; but the great argument which comes home
to him personally with supreme force is that derived from the wit-
ness of Conscience — * the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in
its infoi'mations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its
blessings and anathemas.' The existence of God, ' borne in upon
him irresistibly ' by the voice within, is ' the great truth of which
his whole being is full ' (' Apologia,' p. 241).'
After quoting the words of M. Renan, Mr. Lilly proceeds, " This
Note II. 501
is the point from which he (Cardinal Newman) starts. Conscience,
the ' great internal teacher,' ' nearer to us than any other means of
knowledge,' informs us (as he judges) that God is ; ' the special
Attribute under which it bi'ings Him before us, to which it sub-
ordinates all other Attributes, being that of justice — retributive
justice,' ('Grammar of Assent,' p. 385, Third Edition). 'The
sense of right and wrong ' he considers to be ' the first element ' in
natural religion (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, p. 67, Fourth
Edition). And Catholicism, which he regards as the sole form of
Christianity historically or philosophically tenable, is for him the
only possible complement of natural religion. I cannot venture to
ask you to allow me space to do more than thus indicate the nature
of the argument by which he ascends from his first to his final
religious idea. I would refer those who would follow it step by
step to his 'Grammar of Assent/ 'Apologia,' and ' Discourses to
Mixed Congregations ; ' or, if a mere summary will suffice, to an
article of my own in the Fortnightly Seview of July, 1879.
Cardinal Newman's main defence — not his sole defence — of his creed
amounts, then, to this : that religion is an integral part of our
nature, and that Catholicism alone adequately fulfils the expectation
of a revelation which natural religion raises. This may be a good
or a bad defence ; but, whether good or bad, it is very different from
the nude pi'oposition ' that Catholicism is the only possible alterna- '
tive to atheism.' " He ends with a few kind words about myself
personally.
THE END.
GILBKET AND EIVIKGTON, PEINTEE8, ST. JOHlf'S SQUAEE, LONDON.
CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WORKS.
1. SERMONS.
1 — 8. Parochial and Plain Sermons. {Uivingtons.)
9. Sermons on Subjects or the Day. {Uivingtons.)
10. University Sermons. {Bivingtons.)
11. Sermons to Mixed Congregations. {Burns and Oates.)
12. Occasional Sermons. (Burns and Oates.)
2. TREATISES.
13. On the Doctrine of Justification. {Bivingtons.)
14. On the Development of Christian Doctrine. {Picheriiig.)
15. On the Idea of a University. {Pickering.)
16. On the Doctrine of Assent. {Bums and Oates.)
3. ESSAYS.
17. Two Essays on Miracles. 1. Of Scripture. 2. Of Eccle-
siastical History. {Pichering.)
18. Discussions and Arguments. 1. How to accomplish it.
2. The Antichrist of the Fathers. 3. Scripture and the
Creed. 4. Tarn worth Reading-Room. 5. Who's to blame ?
6. An Argument for Christianity. (Pickering.)
19,20. Essays Critical and Historical. Two Volumes witk
Notes. 1. Poetry. 2. Rationalism. 3. De la Mennais.
4. Palmer on Faith and Unity. 6. St. Ignatius. 6. Pro-
spects of the Anglican Church. 7. The Anglo-American
Church. 8. Countess of Huntingdon. 9. Catholicity of
the Anglican Church. 10. The Antichrist of Protestants.
11. Milman's Christianity. 12. Reformation of the Eleventh
Century. 13. Private Judgment. 14. Davison. 15.
Keble. {Pickering.)
4. HISTORICAL.
•21—23. Three Volumes. 1. The Turks. 2. Cicero. 3. Apol-
lonius. 4. Primitive Christiaaity. 5. Church of the
Fathers. 6. St. Chrysostom. 7. Theodoret. 8. St.
Benedict. 9. Benedictine Schools. 10. Universities.
11. Northmen and Normans. 12. Medieval Oxford. 13.
Convocation of Canterbury. {Pickering.)
5. THEOLOGICAL.
24. The Aeians of the Fourth Century. {Pickering.)
25, 26. Annotated Translation of Athanasius, Two Volumes.
{Pickering.)
27. Tracts. 1. Dissertatiuncute. 2. On the Text of the
Seven Epistles of St. Ignatius. 8. Doctrinal Causes of
Arianism. 4. Apollinarianism. 5. St. Cyril's Formula.
6. Ordo de Tempore. 7. Douay Version of Scripture.
{Pickering.)
6. POLEMICAL.
28, 29. Via Media. Two Volumes with Notes. 1. Vol. Pro-
phetical Office of the Church. 2. Vol. Occasional Letters
and Tracts. {Pickering.)
30,31. Difficulties of Anglicans. Two Volumes. ]. Vol.
Twelve Lectures. 2. Vol. Letters to Dr. Pusey con-
cerning the Bl. Virgin, and to the Duke of Norfolk in
defence of the Pope and Council. {Barns and Oates, and
Pickering.)
32. Present Position of Catholics in England. {Burns
and Oates.)
33. ApoLOGLi PRO Vita Sua. {Longmans.)
7. LITERARY.
34. Verses on Various Occasions. {Bums and Oates.)
35. Loss and Gain. {Burns and Oates, and Pickering.)
36. Callista. {Bums and Oates.)
% It is scarcely necessary to say that the Author submits all that
he has written to the judgment of the Church, whose gift and
prerogative it is to determine what is true and what is false in
religious teaching.
Jo
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